Democrat James Talarico won a Texas Senate seat despite Elon Musk's political action committee contributing $47 million to Republican Ken Paxton's campaign, plus $158 million Musk gave to the Senate Leadership Fund in September. The seat turned Democratic for the first time since 1988. Talarico said in his acceptance speech: "We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas." Musk responded on X with: "Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time."
Musk was the top individual donor in this year's midterms overall, contributing an estimated $446 million backing Republican candidates through Super Pacs, which can raise unlimited sums but cannot coordinate directly with campaigns. Tesla stock fell 4.9% and SpaceX stock fell 3.4% on Wednesday morning following the election outcome, while broader stocks were up. Many Democrats had opposed expansion of AI data centers on the campaign trail.
Talarico responded to Musk's earlier posts on X claiming something was "deeply wrong" with the Democrat by writing: "There is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator."