Elon Musk spent about $446 million helping Republicans in the U.S. midterm elections, but Democrats won both chambers of Congress.
According to federal filings compiled by Newsweek, Musk was the biggest donor in this midterm election, contributing about three times as much as the runner-up. His biggest bet was the Texas Senate race: he put more than $200 million behind Republican Ken Paxton, but Democrat James Talarico won, becoming the first Democrat since 1988 to win a Senate seat in Texas. Greg Abbott, the Texas governor he supported with donations, also lost.
After the votes were counted, Musk joked on X: “Looks like my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time.” He added: “Space data centers are looking pretty tempting now.”
Tesla and SpaceX shares were both down more than 4% in premarket trading on Wednesday. Democrats had previously said that, if they took control of Congress, they would investigate Musk’s government business and federal contracts.
One of the key issues in the Texas campaign was AI data centers. Republicans want to turn Texas into a hub for the AI industry, while Democrats advocate stricter regulation and have called for data centers to bear the cost of their own infrastructure.
According to federal filings compiled by Newsweek, Musk was the biggest donor in this midterm election, contributing about three times as much as the runner-up. His biggest bet was the Texas Senate race: he put more than $200 million behind Republican Ken Paxton, but Democrat James Talarico won, becoming the first Democrat since 1988 to win a Senate seat in Texas. Greg Abbott, the Texas governor he supported with donations, also lost.
After the votes were counted, Musk joked on X: “Looks like my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time.” He added: “Space data centers are looking pretty tempting now.”
Tesla and SpaceX shares were both down more than 4% in premarket trading on Wednesday. Democrats had previously said that, if they took control of Congress, they would investigate Musk’s government business and federal contracts.
One of the key issues in the Texas campaign was AI data centers. Republicans want to turn Texas into a hub for the AI industry, while Democrats advocate stricter regulation and have called for data centers to bear the cost of their own infrastructure.
