AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Elon Musk has spent at least $445 million helping Republicans maintain control of Congress, an amount roughly equivalent to someone with a $100,000 annual salary saving every penny for 4,400 years.
For the world’s top billionaire, that’s a pittance, but the billions of dollars in transactions his companies do with the federal government are not. And on Tuesday night, a Republican Party that had backed Musk lost again and again, ceding control of Congress to a Democratic Party wary of the world’s richest man and eager to put his businesses and his work at the Department of Government Effectiveness under a microscope.
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Perhaps no one suffered greater losses Tuesday than President Donald Trump. But few others had more at stake than Musk, who played big and ended up with the worst return on investment in the medium term. Congressional Democrats were already lining up to take their chances against Musk, with possible subpoenas and investigations.
As the bloodiest Republican election in recent history continued, Musk joked on X, the social media site he owns. “Guess my space lasers interfering with the election didn’t work this time,” he wrote with a shrugging emoji.
Musk now faces new threats to his bottom line, particularly in Texas, where he and several of his companies are based. Musk spent at least $5 million trying to re-elect Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who lost. Democrats also secured control of the Texas House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, in part by defeating Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who effectively benefited from $158 million in Musk spending but lost his Senate race to Democrat James Talarico.
It was the first statewide victory for Democrats in Texas in more than 30 years, and the candidates won in part because of Musk, the tax breaks and subsidies his businesses receive, and his relationships with Republican elected officials.
“This era of open corruption is going to end,” said Rep. Gene Wu, chairman of the state Legislature’s new Democratic caucus.
Musk did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Musk’s reputation hasn’t helped many Texas voters
Just over half of Texas voters said they had an unfavorable opinion of Musk, according to the AP Voter Poll of more than 5,000 voters in the state. While Musk is mostly viewed positively by MAGA Republicans, those numbers decline for non-MAGA GOP voters and plummet for independent and Democratic voters.
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These were the voters Talarico and Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who beat Abbott in the gubernatorial race, were targeting. Both men have often framed their policies not through the lens of partisanship, but as billionaires pitted against ordinary Texans, and Musk’s emergence as a major Republican benefactor has played a role in that message.
“Paxton is funded by one guy. Elon Musk wants our land. He wants our water. He wants our tax money. He wants his own United States senator,” Talarico told the crowd at his last campaign rally, just after Hinojosa delivered a similar excoriation on the same stage in Austin.
“We know that Elon Musk received a $1.7 billion property tax break here in Texas, a property tax that we all have to pay dearly for,” Hinojosa said.
Even though Musk’s money helped blanket Texas with negative ads largely against Talarico, Democrats’ message spoke to the heart of an electorate whose median household income of $85,000 a year is under strain as the prices of gas, groceries, rent and mortgages continue to rise.
Outgoing Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said there was a point where the sheer amount of Musk’s donations became irrelevant to GOP efforts.
“You hit the upper limit of the benefits of any of these dollars,” he said in an interview. “People are so turned off by all the ads, and all you do is run the same ad every time.”
Investor nervousness after election caused Elon Musk’s net worth to drop by $45 billion
Musk’s two publicly traded companies, Tesla and SpaceX, both saw their stock prices fall significantly on Wednesday even as the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index climbed.
Tesla shares fell Wednesday afternoon and erased about $40 billion from the electric car maker’s $1.54 trillion market capitalization. SpaceX also lost about $40 billion of its market value, which now stands at $1.83 trillion.
Musk lost about $45 billion of his net worth, which stood at $865.6 billion, according to Forbes on Wednesday, although it could rebound.
Investors report some nervousness about the impact of the election on Musk’s businesses. Fears that he could face congressional investigations “contributed to the early downfall of his benchmark companies,” said Joe Mazzola, chief trading and derivatives strategist at Charles Schwab.
Musk’s genius is also his danger, said Michael Morris, a professor of leadership at Columbia Business School.
“I can understand that the same strategic mind that makes him so good at some business ventures and at coverage makes him think he can take control of politics as well, but it’s a different animal,” he said.
“He obviously has way more money than he will ever need, and his businesses are doing well,” Morris continued. “I think it’s kind of a game for him.”
Musk now faces a wary Congress
Democrats haven’t forgotten Musk’s time in Washington last year as head of DOGE, who raided agencies by eliminating federal employees, and the recent fiasco in which SpaceX’s internet service in Ukraine, Starlink, was throttled amid the war with Russia.
“Elon Musk held up a chainsaw on stage and laughed as he laid off public workers and gutted the services Americans rely on,” Rep. James Walkinshaw, a Virginia Democrat, wrote in an X-post just before the election. “He must answer under oath.”
In Texas, with the arrival of a Democratic governor, Musk’s dealings with the state, including tax breaks, could face similar scrutiny.
In August, Musk’s companies received a $30 million grant through a state program to build a semiconductor factory that is expected to create 3,000 jobs, one of several cash infusions he has received through state programs. And he successfully pushed the state legislature to pass laws favorable to his businesses.
Musk has also denounced what he calls the “woke-mind virus,” which appears to be a partisan motivation for him, and posted a series of messages on X ahead of the election against Talarico, almost entirely due to the Democrat’s past positions on transgender rights and other progressive causes. This was also Paxton’s central attack against Talarico, although it failed.
“You know you can’t fool them anymore with these culture wars, and they’re frustrated with the costs,” said Rep. Christina Morales, a Houston state Democrat now in the majority in the state House of Representatives.
“We’re not saying you don’t belong here,” she said, but “Texans can’t be bought.”
Ortutay reported from Oakland, California.
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