Tesla slides 4% as Musk's $474M midterm bet flops in Texas

Tesla shares skidded about 4% and SpaceX also slipped after Elon Musk's hand-picked candidates got walloped in the 2026 midterms, according to a CNBC analysis of campaign finance records. Musk burned a record at least $474 million on the races, and plenty of his favorites still lost.

Nearly half that pile, $224 million, poured into Texas — and it didn't buy him much. Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton and Governor Greg Abbott both fell to Democrats. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa has already called for a pause on new data centres and an end to industry tax incentives.

That's the part Wall Street is chewing on. Musk's empire leans hard on Texas, the source notes, with state decisions on power, water, permits and tax breaks shaping everything from Tesla's biggest US car plant near Austin to SpaceX launches from Starbase.

The money didn't stay in Texas, either. Nationwide, roughly $173 million went into largely negative ads targeting data centres, according to AdImpact — a number that shows just how hot the fight over the infrastructure behind AI has become.

So the midterms are over, but for Musk the bill is still coming due. Tesla's 4% drop is the market's first read on a statehouse that may be less friendly to his companies than the last one.