Musk Jokes About Republican Midterm Defeat After Record Spending for the Party

"Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time," Musk wrote on X, adding a shrug emoji, according to Arab News, which carried an AFP report.

Democrats took control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives on Tuesday, ending Republican control of Congress and the White House. From January, President Donald Trump will govern with a divided Congress.

Musk contributed nearly half a billion dollars to Republican political efforts. That makes him the largest individual contributor in a federal election cycle since unlimited election spending was allowed in 2010, according to the campaign finance tracker OpenSecrets. Most of the money went to his Republican-leaning America PAC and to the Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC.

The Senate Leadership Fund used $158 million of Musk's donations in September to support Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate in Texas. Democrat James Talarico beat Paxton, a close Trump ally, and became the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas since 1994.

At a victory rally in Austin, Talarico referred to Musk directly. "In this race, we went up against our own Goliaths. The richest man in the world, the most powerful man in the world and the entire Washington, DC establishment," he said.

Why It Matters

Musk runs Tesla, SpaceX and the AI company xAI, which all depend heavily on federal regulators, contracts and policy. His spending put him at the centre of a midterm campaign in which technology, data centres and energy prices became election issues. A Democratic Congress is expected to bring closer oversight of large technology and AI companies. Investors were already pricing in that risk on Wednesday, when Nasdaq futures and chip-heavy Asian markets fell as the results came in.

The Texas result also matters to the AI industry beyond the Senate seat. The state accounts for a large share of planned US data centre capacity, and the same election produced a governor who backs a data centre moratorium.