Elon Musk spent nearly half a billion dollars backing Republicans in the 2026 midterm elections. It bought him diddly squat.
Musk spent the bulk of his $446 million in Texas, with $158 million alone allotted to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s U.S. Senate bid. The scandal-plagued MAGA nominee ― who’d been handpicked by President Donald Trump in the Republican primary ― went down in flames Tuesday night.
Despite Musk’s millions, Democratic nominee James Talarico is projected to win the deep-red state handily. With 97% of the votes counted Wednesday morning, the senator-elect was leading by more than 12 percentage points in the state where Trump won by nearly 14 points in 2024.
In his victory speech late Tuesday, Talarico gave a Texas-sized middle finger to the richest man on earth and advised the crowd to “always bet on the underdog,” recounting the biblical story of David vs. Goliath.
“All the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas,” he said to cheers. “And we just sent a message to every billionaire mega donor, every trillionaire mega donor, every corrupt defender of this broken political system in this state, in this country, power belongs to the people.”
Similar results played out in the gubernatorial race, where Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa looks locked to pull off a stunning upset over incumbent Greg Abbott (R).
And in a truly stunning turn, Republicans are also likely to lose control of the Texas House of Representatives, which they’ve held since 2002.
Musk acknowledged the triple dose of defeats on social media late Tuesday night.
“Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time,” he wrote on X, the social media site he bought in 2022 to amplify right-wing voices. Musk followed up the post with a “shrug” emoji.
The political losses aligned with sharp drops in shares of SpaceX and Tesla, which fell 8.5% and 5.5%, respectively, on election night.
Both companies have major operations in Texas where, thanks to its political climate, Musk has been able to operate with relative impunity. That may soon change.
“People only say Elon Musk’s name with expletives after them,” Kendall Scudder, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, told HuffPost before the election.
“What happens in a world where people wake up and Democrats have won some seats in Texas. It creates a very different political map,” Scudder added. “And for somebody like Elon Musk, if you think retribution isn’t on the way, you’re mistaken.”
Musk relocated Tesla’s headquarters from California to Texas in 2021, partially in retribution because state health officials refused to let him force factory workers to come to work during the worst of the COVID pandemic.
Musk, who would go on to give what appeared to be a Nazi-like gesture while delivering an inaugural speech for Trump, called California’s restrictions fascist.
In 2024, he also moved the headquarters of SpaceX and X, along with his own personal residence (and adjoining compound populated by the mothers of his children), to Texas.