Musk's $446M midterms bet flops as Democrats sweep key races

Elon Musk's midterm gamble ended in a wipeout. The Tesla and SpaceX chief poured at least $446m into Republican-aligned Super PACs this cycle — a personal record, according to Straits Times — and watched Democrats take nearly everything he was trying to buy. His five biggest bets, all Senate races where his America Pac spent the most, went blue. In Texas, where his companies are headquartered and where he concentrated his firepower, Republicans lost the Senate seat, the governor's mansion and are expected to hand over the state House too.

The money was staggering. Musk's cash flowed to at least eight Republican-aligned Super PACs, with at least $216m landing in his own America Pac and $168m going to the Senate Leadership Fund, which backed candidates including Texas Republican Ken Paxton. His single biggest project was the Paxton–James Talarico Senate matchup, where America Pac dropped at least $28m on anti-Talarico ads and messaging. Musk hammered Talarico on X too, once posting that the Democrat wanted to 'trans your kids and destroy the border.'

Talarico won anyway, and he used his victory speech to throw the spending right back at Musk. 'We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas,' he said. 'We just sent a message to every billionaire mega-donor, every trillionaire mega-donor.' Michigan, Maine, Ohio and Iowa also went Democratic after America Pac spent tens of millions backing Republicans there, much of it on ads about transgender rights or branding Democrats radical socialists.

Musk, normally loud on X, went quiet on election night. He tossed off one line — 'Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now' — and otherwise stayed silent as the results rolled in. The defeat costs him more than the cash. His companies have feasted on Trump administration contracts and a hands-off approach to AI regulation, while Texas lawmakers and Governor Greg Abbott handed him a friendly business climate. That era looks finished, with a Democratic House, Senate and Texas government vowing tougher scrutiny of tech and of Musk specifically.

Incoming Texas governor Gina Hinojosa has already called for a datacenter moratorium and has been fighting in court for unredacted emails between Abbott's office and Musk. House Democrats want investigations into his conduct running the so-called 'department of government efficiency' and say they'll examine federal funding for his companies. Musk outspent his own 2024 political splurge of nearly $290m, yet the return was close to zero.

The flop still made noise. Musk and the Super PACs helped create several of the most expensive races in US history, setting a template for what 2028 presidential spending might look like — and feeding months of debate about what money can and can't buy at the ballot box.