Musk's Nearly $500 Million Midterm Bet Falls Flat: Only 3 of 43 House Republicans He Backed Won
WASHINGTON — Elon Musk spent nearly half a billion dollars backing Republican candidates in the 2026 U.S. midterm elections, but the record expenditure yielded little, Reuters reported on November 5: just three of the 43 House Republicans Musk backed won on Tuesday night, compared to 33 who lost, while the remaining seven races had not been called by late Wednesday, though Democrats are running ahead in tallies so far.
In the Senate, six of the seven Republican candidates Musk backed lost, with only the Alaska race still hanging in the balance, where Democrat Mary Peltola is narrowly ahead with 77 percent of votes counted. Musk spent $445 million on federal races alone, according to nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog OpenSecrets; a person familiar with his campaign spending said he spent tens of millions more through dark money nonprofit groups, and millions more on state and local elections.
In Texas, where SpaceX and Tesla are headquartered, Musk also came up empty after spending almost $230 million on the Senate contest, $5 million on the governor's race, and $500,000 on the lieutenant governor vote. Political advertising tracker AdImpact said the Texas Senate contest was the most expensive U.S. non-presidential race ever, with roughly $573.2 million in total spending. Democratic Senator-elect James Talarico, whom Musk targeted with $153.5 million worth of attack ads, said in his acceptance speech late Tuesday in Austin, Texas: "Tonight we beat Goliath."
Early on Wednesday, November 4, as the election results became clear, Musk posted on X: "Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time." Shares of SpaceX and Tesla fell 3.9 percent and 3.3 percent respectively on Wednesday, Reuters reported, on investor concerns that a Democratic-controlled Congress would tighten scrutiny of Musk's Starlink satellite service and his AI data center projects. Democrats say they are adding campaign finance reform to their wish list and plan investigations into Musk's companies, their contracts, his work running the Department of Government Efficiency, involvement in Ukraine and contact with Russia. The incoming chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Representative Robert Garcia, a California Democrat, plans to introduce legislation closing the "Musk loophole," a provision in campaign finance law that allows individual executives to spend unlimited personal money on political campaigns. Incoming Texas Governor Gina Hinojosa, who beat Republican Governor Greg Abbott, has indicated she would challenge Musk's close relationship with the state, and has sued Abbott's office for access to unredacted emails involving Musk and his companies.
Source: Reuters
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：马斯克2025年2月在马里兰州国家港湾一场活动上讲话。Gage Skidmore 摄，CC BY-SA 3.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: Elon Musk speaking at an event in National Harbor, Maryland, in February 2025. Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
