Musk’s Record Midterm Spending Fails to Stop Republican Losses
Elon Musk spent a reported $446 million to $474 million backing Republicans, but the GOP lost both chambers of Congress and key Texas races.
Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, put more money into the 2026 US midterm elections than any donor on record, nearly all of it to help Republicans. On Tuesday the party lost control of both the House and the Senate, and some of the races where he spent the most went to Democrats.
Reported totals differ. Democracy Now, citing a New York Times tally, said Musk gave $474 million to support Republican candidates. That figure covers spending only through Oct. 14, so it leaves out the last three weeks of the campaign. Al Jazeera, reporting with the French news agency AFP, put his spending at $446 million. Both figures make him the cycle’s top donor, and Democracy Now said no donor had ever spent more in a single election cycle.
Where the money went
CNBC reported on Oct. 12 that Musk had given more than $276 million to Republican groups since July. It said his known federal political giving for the 2025-26 cycle had reached about $366 million, more than the roughly $290 million he spent in the 2024 presidential election. Musk’s representatives gave the figures to the New York Times, and Lindsey Curnutte, a spokesperson for America PAC, confirmed them to CNBC.
According to CNBC’s breakdown at that point, the recipients included:
- Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC backing Republican Senate candidates: $158 million, which CNBC called one of the largest known political donations by an individual in US history.
- America PAC, the political action committee Musk founded during the 2024 campaign, which runs voter-turnout operations in competitive races: more than $76 million.
- Congressional Leadership Fund, the leading super PAC supporting House Republicans: $20 million.
- Republican Governors Association and Lone Star Liberty PAC, a group supporting Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton: $10 million each.
- Republican Attorneys General Association: $2 million.
Texas at the center
Texas, where Musk has moved the headquarters of Tesla, SpaceX and his social media platform X, drew the most money. Democracy Now, citing the Times, said he spent about $224 million in the state, most of it backing Ken Paxton, the Republican Texas attorney general, in his Senate race. Al Jazeera reported that the Senate Leadership Fund used $158 million of Musk’s donations in September to support Paxton.
Paxton lost to Democrat James Talarico. Al Jazeera reported that voters rejected Paxton’s plan to make Texas the center of the US artificial intelligence industry through rapid data center construction, while Talarico campaigned for tighter regulation of data centers. In his victory speech, according to Al Jazeera, Talarico said his campaign had taken on “goliaths,” including “the richest man in the world,” and won.
In the governor’s race, Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, whom Musk had given $5 million, Al Jazeera reported.
Musk’s response
On Wednesday, Musk joked about the results on X. “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time,” he wrote, according to Al Jazeera, and in another post: “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.”
The size of his spending stands out against his own past remarks. In May 2025, CNBC noted, Musk said he was “going to do a lot less” political spending in the future. His giving this cycle has since passed what he spent in 2024. Al Jazeera and CNBC describe Musk as a trillionaire. Al Jazeera said he crossed that mark in June, when SpaceX went public.
Musk stepped back from a visible role in President Donald Trump’s administration in 2025 after a public falling-out, CNBC reported, and the two have since reconciled. SpaceX is a major contractor for NASA and the Pentagon.
What comes next
Unlimited independent spending by wealthy donors has been part of US politics since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which struck down limits on independent political spending by corporations, unions and other groups. Spending across this year’s midterms reached nearly $12 billion, an all-time record, according to Federal Election Commission figures cited by Democracy Now.
Because the published tallies of Musk’s giving stop in mid-October, later campaign finance filings should show how much more he spent in the campaign’s last weeks and give a fuller picture of the record total.
