Elon Musk spent more on the midterms than any single donor in US history, and the party he backed lost both chambers of Congress. Now he has reacted, and he’s joking about it.
Elon Musk has responded to the midterm election results after spending hundreds of millions of dollars backing Republicans who went on to lose control of Congress. The Tesla and SpaceX boss poured more than $450 million into Republican campaigns this election cycle, reportedly the largest amount any single donor has ever spent on a US election.
A big share of the money went to Texas, where Musk moved in 2020 and where Tesla, SpaceX and X now have their headquarters.
Musk was one of Donald Trump’s biggest backers in 2024 and went on to lead the Department of Government Efficiency in 2025. But despite all of this, Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate, the Associated Press projected. Tesla and SpaceX shares reportedly fell around 6 percent in premarket trading early Wednesday.
Some of the biggest upsets came in Musk’s adopted home state.
Democrat James Talarico defeated Ken Paxton in the race for the US Senate, ending a decades-long losing streak for Texas Democrats in statewide races. In the governor’s race, Democrat Gina Hinojosa beat incumbent Greg Abbott.
Musk reacted to the results on with humor.
“Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time,” he wrote, adding a shrug emoji. The joke was a nod to a debunked conspiracy theory that spread after the 2024 election, which claimed Musk had used his Starlink satellites to change vote counts.
In another post, he wrote: “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.”
That one was a reference to SpaceX’s plans to put AI computer clusters into orbit. It also comes after Hinojosa’s win, since she has called for a pause on building new AI data centers in Texas. According to Gizmodo, Musk also deleted an earlier post in which he had urged his followers to “vote red today.”
It wasn’t all bad news for the trillionaire, however. Forbes reported that 18 candidates backed by Musk won their seats, albeit mostly in lower-profile races.
A campaign spending tally is easier to interpret when the number is broken down. Money given directly to candidates, money contributed to outside organizations and money spent by those organizations can describe different activities. A headline may group several categories together. Readers comparing one election cycle with another need to know whether the totals are built from the same categories and dates.
Election results also reveal only part of what political spending achieved. One donor may back a mix of candidates in competitive races and candidates favored to win. Individual campaigns can win even when their party loses ground overall, and a national result does not explain what happened in each district. A spending estimate and a description of a donor's public reaction are therefore separate claims. The figure describes an investment in political activity, while the reaction describes how that donor publicly responded to the outcome.
