Even $445m wasn’t enough to buy Musk friends in Washington

Donald Trump may have been the biggest loser of the US midterm elections, but Elon Musk came a close second. The Tesla and SpaceX founder spent a staggering $445m of his own money supporting Republican candidates across the country – and seemingly got next to nothing in return as Republicans lost control of both the House and the Senate to a “blue wave” of Democratic Party wins. The richest man in the world, with a fortune of around $900bn, Musk was the biggest donor in this campaign. His efforts were especially focused on Texas, the state he moved to in 2020 after suggesting that California, his previous home, had become too liberal and its taxes were too high. Shorts Now, in a delicious irony, Texas has elected its first Democrat to the US Senate since 1988, as well as a Democrat governor. After his win, Senator-elect James Talarico said that he will focus on getting “big money out of our politics”. More pointedly, he told CBS: “Last night, the people of Texas delivered a crystal-clear message to the world’s first trillionaire: Texas is not for sale.” Texas voters also backed a Democratic Attorney General, the top prosecutor in the state, meaning that Musk, who has shown a distain for environmental regulations, will likely face much tougher scrutiny of his businesses. Short of getting on one of his spaceships and heading for Mars, there seems to be no chance of Musk avoiding being governed by a Democrat. On X, the social media network he owns, Musk tried to play down the difficult night he and the Republican Party had. “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time,” he joked in one post, along with a shrug emoji. In another, he hinted at the likelihood of the incoming Democratic governor of Texas, Gina Hinojosa, blocking the development of new data centres in the state. Musk is relying on such sites for xAI, his artificial intelligence company. “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” he wrote. Musk had largely sat out of politics since the 2024 presidential election and the controversy that ensued when he took control of Doge, the cost-cutting agency Trump set up upon his return to the White House. Elon Musk and Donald Trump joined forces to try to cut government spending before publicly falling out (Photo: Nathan Howard/Reuters) Musk claimed that the quasi-government department would save taxpayers $2trn due to aggressive cost cutting, but the amount was far less, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office, which said there were no receipts for the majority of the $214bn Doge claimed to have saved. He eventually fell out with Trump and left the agency, later admitting he got “carried away” with Doge and became “intoxicated” with the project, which led to tens of thousands of government workers being laid off and the shuttering of the entire USAid department, which distributed foreign aid for the US government. In the aftermath, Democrats painted Musk as a comic-book villain, and for months he appeared to be chastened, keeping his distance from Trump. But last year they made up – it seems that if there’s one thing that can cause Trump to put his misgivings aside it’s the possibility of a large pot of money. When Musk once again opened his wallet, he went big – especially in Texas, where he donated $168m to the Senate Leadership Fund, which spent most of the money on the campaign for scandal-plagued Republican Ken Paxton, who lost on Tuesday. In the final days of the campaign, Musk reposted to his 241m X followers a comment that Talarico was the “most left wing, extreme radical candidate imaginable”. “Every single position he has taken would be considered far left even in California,” the post said. “Talarico wants to shut down the oil industry in Texas, he wants to trans children and he believes there are 6 genders. It is bizarre that he is even competitive in Texas.” A person wearing a costume featuring Elon Musk, Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton and a cheque made out for $215m (Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Images) Talarico ended up winning 55 per cent of the vote to Paxton’s 43 per cent, a stunning result in a state that has been reliably Republican for more than three decades. Musk’s warnings that a Democratic victory would mean “the end of democracy in any meaningful sense of the word” also fell on deaf ears as voters rejected the Trump administration in the starkest terms. The coming years may now feature unprecedented scrutiny for Musk, with some Democrat lawmakers vowing to investigate Trump’s allies through their control of the House and the Senate. Before the midterms, Democrats had already demanded an explanation as to why Musk’s Starlink satellite communications platform was cut off for Ukraine’s military earlier this month. There will also be scrutiny of Musk’s government contracts, which could be reconsidered by a Democrat-controlled Congress. “They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing,” Senator Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, posted on X Tuesday night. Musk himself had half-joked about the fate that could await him if Democrats ever stormed back to power. Speaking to Tucker Carlson ahead of the 2024 presidential election, Musk said that if Trump lost, then “I’m f*****”. Then, to nervous laughter, Musk added: “How long do you think my prison sentence is going to be?”