Elon Musk spent a record $445 million trying to help Republicans in the US midterms, but there were other things written on the cards. Democrats flipped both chambers of Congress, much to the chagrin of the tech biggie.
Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time 🤷♂️
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2026
The joke landed differently given the numbers behind it. According to campaign finance tracker OpenSecrets, Musk became the largest individual contributor in a federal election cycle. That record stretches back to 2010, when the Supreme Court removed limits on independent political spending. Nobody has ever spent this much for this little return.
Most of the money went to his Republican-leaning America PAC. He also donated $158 million to the Republican Senate Leadership Fund in September.
Musk posted a second joke shortly afterward, this one more telling. After Texas elected an anti-data-center Democrat as governor, he wrote: “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.” The quip referenced his Google Suncatcher satellite project but carried a real edge. Musk moved Tesla, SpaceX, and X headquarters to Texas specifically.
