Key facts
- Musk spent around $446 million on the 2026 midterms, including over $200 million on Texas-related efforts, the report said.
- Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated incumbent Greg Abbott in the Texas gubernatorial race, the report said.
- Ken Paxton lost the Texas Senate race and Vivek Ramaswamy lost the Ohio gubernatorial race, according to the report.
- Musk wrote on X that data centers in space were looking appealing after the results.
Tech billionaire and Republican donor Elon Musk was among the biggest losers of election night after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to boost candidates who failed to win their races, according to a report dated November 4, 2026.
Musk doled out around $446 million, the most a non-candidate has ever spent on an election, including over $200 million on Texas-related efforts, the report said. His preferred candidates lost almost everywhere, including Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race and Vivek Ramaswamy in the Ohio gubernatorial race.
His plans for a buildout of data centers across Texas are especially in doubt after Democrat Gina Hinojosa won a surprise victory over incumbent Greg Abbott in the state's gubernatorial race, the report said. Musk wrote on X on Wednesday morning: "Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now," and followed with a joke about election interference.
Sam Koppelman, publisher of Hunterbrook Media, said Texas had been expected to be an AI oasis for data center construction and that the election changed that. With Democrats taking control of the US Congress, the report said Musk may also be a target for a party looking to pillory tech CEOs, with some Democrats pushing to bring tech CEOs in front of Congress. Democratic Representative Greg Casar of Texas said in a statement on Tuesday evening that voters rejected Republicans in part because they were bought and paid for by AI billionaires.