Elon Musk spends $458 million backing GOP candidates. Then they suffer sweeping defeats: ‘Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work’

Elon Musk reportedly poured $458 million into Republican campaigns during the 2026 midterm cycle. On Tuesday, most of those candidates lost across the board. Democrats captured both houses of Congress and flipped long-held statewide offices in Texas.

The billionaire, the cycle’s top individual donor, addressed the outcome the next morning on X. Hours after the results were clear he wrote, “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time.” The line arrived as Democratic challenger James Talarico unseated Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton and Gina Hinojosa ousted Governor Greg Abbott.

Those two Texas races marked the first Democratic statewide victories there in decades. Musk’s post mixed the election news with a reference to an earlier claim by former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene about weather-altering “space lasers.” Critics of his spending had raised questions about the scale of his involvement; the message appeared to answer them directly.

Texas races and data-center plans draw attention after the vote

Democrats now hold majorities in the House and Senate for the first time in years. In Texas, the same night ended more than two decades of uninterrupted Republican control of the governor’s office and a U.S. Senate seat.

Later on Wednesday, Musk added a second post. He wrote, “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.” The timing coincided with Hinojosa’s preparation to take office. She has advocated a temporary halt on new data-center construction in Texas, a state that hosts major operations tied to Musk’s businesses.

Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and a major Democratic donor, offered a different take the same day. He called the results an “overwhelming wave against Trump and his cronies.” In the same thread, he singled out Musk, saying the billionaire had spent “outrageous amounts to keep authoritarian clowns in power.” Hoffman contrasted that with his own donations to Democratic candidates.

Elon Musk had no name on Tuesday’s ballot, but the Democrats’ sweeping midterm victories in the House and Senate could deliver a costly setback for the billionaire. Nowhere was the potential fallout more pronounced than in Texas, where Musk’s companies are headquartered and where he spent more than $200 million, according to NPR, to help elect the Republican Senate candidate.

A Democratic-controlled Congress could put Musk under renewed scrutiny, examining billions of dollars in federal contracts awarded to his companies since Trump’s return to office and his role heading DOGE at the start of the president’s second term.