Musk spent $500 million on Texas races; Democrats took them all

Elon Musk posted a joke on X early Wednesday morning about his failed attempts to influence the vote. “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time 🤷♂️,” he wrote. The comment followed the confirmation of Democratic victories in key Texas races.

Musk poured nearly half a billion dollars into Republican efforts during the 2026 midterm cycle. OpenSecrets identified him as the largest individual contributor in a federal election since the 2010 Citizens United ruling. Much of that money flowed to the America PAC and the Senate Leadership Fund.

The spending did not buy the outcome for his favored candidates. Attorney General Ken Paxton lost the U.S. Senate race to Democrat James Talarico. Paxton had received $158 million in support from the Senate Leadership Fund alone in September. Talarico is the first Democrat to win the Texas Senate seat since 1988.

The losses extended to other top offices. Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated incumbent Governor Greg Abbott. Hinojosa is the first Democrat elected to that post since Ann Richards in 1990. Musk had contributed $5 million to Abbott’s campaign. Democrats also captured the lieutenant governor and attorney general positions, ending more than 30 years of Republican control in statewide races.

Talarico addressed the financial disparity in his victory speech in Austin. “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. The results mark a sharp reversal for a state that has favored Republicans for decades.

The outcome carries direct weight for Musk because Tesla, SpaceX, and X maintain headquarters in Texas. He also posted that data centers in space look “pretty appealing right now.” That remark lands amid a political push to regulate large AI facilities. Talarico campaigned for tighter oversight of data center development, while Hinojosa called for a pause on new projects. Musk did not specify if his companies plan to shift their infrastructure strategies.

Nationally, Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress. This defeat complicates the position of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party. For Musk, the results show that even record-level spending did not secure the desired outcomes in the state where his business empire is based.