Elon Musk has donated more than $445 million to Republican candidates, political action committees and outside groups, according to federal election records, but most of the candidates he supported on Tuesday lost.
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Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Elon Musk was not present in Tuesday’s election, but he stands to lose many of Democrats’ resounding midterm victories in the House and Senate. In no state has this been felt more than in Texas, where Musk’s companies are headquartered and where he has spent more than $200 million, according to federal filings, on a mission to tip the Senate race in favor of the Republican candidate.
With a Democratic majority in Congress, the billionaire, who controls Tesla and SpaceX, will likely face investigations into the billions of dollars in government contracts awarded to his companies since President Trump’s return to office and his role leading the Department of Government Effectiveness at the start of Trump’s second term.
Musk has donated more than $445 million to Republican candidates, political action committees and outside groups, according to federal election filings analyzed by OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks campaign spending. That makes him the top donor in the midterms and one of the largest political donors in American history.
The central question Democratic lawmakers are seeking is whether Musk used his influence in the Trump administration to benefit his own companies, and whether taxpayer dollars, government data and public institutions were put at risk in the process.
In the four months Musk led DOGE, he received at least $6.3 billion in government contracts. Since then, it has won at least $10 billion more in government contracts, according to the Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit advocacy organization.
“The DOGE chickens are going home. Elon Musk wielded a chainsaw on stage and laughed as he fired public servants and gutted the services Americans rely on. Then he lied to the American people about saving money. He must answer for it under oath,” Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) wrote on X.
Musk’s foreign relations are also under scrutiny. Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware posted on X that Musk’s ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin are “one more thing to add to the list of questions to ask Musk when I subpoena him.”
U.S. Rep. Mike Levin of California pointed out that Musk restricted Ukraine’s use of its Starlink satellite internet service days after Trump eased sanctions on Russia and began buying Russian diesel in October. Starlink and its military counterpart, Starshield, are vital to Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, frontline communications and drone operations in its war against Russia.
“How on earth did we get to this point? How is it possible that Musk can disrupt the military operations of a US ally whenever he wants, maintain a clear line with the Kremlin and have no accountability to the American people or the American government?” Levin wrote about X.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment from NPR.
While leading DOGE, Musk was a special part-time government employee and, as such, was subject to federal law prohibiting the relevant executive branch and associated personnel from participating in official business affecting their personal financial interests, said Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics counsel in the George W. Bush administration.
“SpaceX is a big contractor and gets a lot of money from NASA and the Department of Defense. If (Musk) touched something that he knew would impact SpaceX, he would have committed a crime,” Painter said.
Texas has played a growing role in Musk’s business empire
Texas, in particular, has become a major focus of Musk’s efforts to exert his political power, as he has made the state the nerve center of his sprawling business empire. Tesla’s headquarters and a major vehicle manufacturing plant are in Austin. X, formerly Twitter, is based outside of Austin. SpaceX, which makes rockets and satellites, is based in South Texas. Neuralink and Musk’s The Boring Company are also headquartered in the state.
Much of Musk’s estimated wealth is tied to his stakes in his companies. Although markets rose Wednesday following the Democrats’ midterm victory, shares of SpaceX fell nearly 4% and Tesla fell 3%.
SpaceX is reportedly exploring several possible sites in Texas for large data centers. Tesla owns and operates its massive Giga Texas data center in Austin. In August, plans for a $16.8 billion SpaceXAI semiconductor manufacturing project in Texas were announced.
According to OpenSecrets, Musk spent at least $225 million of his midterm spending on Texas, including supporting Republican Ken Paxton’s bid for the U.S. Senate and Gov. Greg Abbott’s re-election campaign.
But Paxton and Abbott both lost, suggesting Musk’s money wasn’t enough to overcome a wave of enthusiasm that saw Democrats capture every statewide office in Texas.
“Elon Musk wants our land. He wants our water. He wants our tax money. He wants his own U.S. senator. He’s trying to buy Texas,” James Talarico, who defeated Paxton in the Senate race, said at a campaign rally in Lubbock last month.
Elon Musk’s own posts on X about Talarico were often personal and inflammatory. “Talarico will vote for your children to be trans,” he wrote on November 1.
Talarico addressed Musk in his victory speech on Tuesday.
“We just sent a message to every billionaire mega-donor, every billionaire mega-donor, every corrupt defender of this broken political system in this state, in this country. The power belongs to the people,” Talarico said. “The real fight in this country is not right versus left, but top versus bottom.”
As the results came in Tuesday evening, Musk wrote on
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