(Text by Guoguanghao of Observer Network)
In the 2026 mid-term elections in the United States, the Republican Party suffered a major defeat, and the Democratic Party seized control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Elon Musk, the American billionaire who invested record amounts of political money for the Republicans, joked about his substantial investment on social media.
At around 1 a.m. local time on November 4th, Musk posted on his social platform X: “It seems that my space lasers, which were intended to interfere with elections, didn’t work this time.”
He appended a shrugging expression emoji at the end of his post.
This somewhat self-deprecating statement occurred after the Democrats achieved a series of surprising victories. According to American media reports such as the Associated Press, the Democrats not only regained control of the House of Representatives, but also successfully defeated states that had long been dominated by Republicans, including Texas, Kansas, and South Carolina in the Senate elections. As a result, they secured a majority in the Senate.
Regarding this loss, Musk has reason to be disappointed. As a key political ally of Trump and the biggest financier in the Republican party’s campaign for this mid-term elections, Musk invested staggering amounts of money to help the Republicans maintain control of Congress.
According to data from the United States Federal Election Commission (FEC) as of October 29th, published by The Guardian on October 31st, Elon Musk has donated at least $454.77 million to political action committees and other organizations supporting the Republican Party since 2025. This makes him the individual political donor who has donated the most money in modern American political history during a single election cycle.
Among them, Musk invested approximately $216 million into his own ‘America PAC’. This organization used the funds to support 43 congressional elections across the United States. It helped Republican candidates acquire votes through television advertisements, online campaigns, text messages, and mail materials.
Moreover, he also donated US $1.68 billion to the “Senate Leadership Fund” (for candidates for Senate) of the Republican Party’s main supporting senators.
Another investigation report by The Guardian on November 2nd estimated Musk's political donations during this mid-term election at $483 million, further highlighting the staggering extent of his political involvement.
It is noteworthy that Musk’s political funding this time even exceeded the nearly $300 million he provided to Trump and the Republican party camp during the 2024 U.S. presidential elections.
Previously, Musk expressed his intention to reduce political donations. However, as the 2026 midterm elections approached, he not only increased his donations again, but also raised the donation amount by about $200 million in the last two months of his campaign.
Musk's political investments focus on Texas, where his business operations are concentrated.
In the competitive state Senate elections, Musk supported Republican candidate and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, trying to prevent Democratic candidate James Talarico from seizing the seat.
According to The Guardian, only America PAC, under Musk’s leadership, invested over $33 million to help Paxton be elected. Of this amount, approximately $28 million was used for negative campaigning against Taralico.
Musk himself has also shared relevant promotional content on his X platform with over 200 million followers.
However, the election results did not meet his expectations. Taralico ultimately defeated Paxton, becoming the first Democrat to win a statewide election in Texas in over 30 years.
The Democratic victory in Texas also extended to the governor's election. Democratic candidate Gina Hinojosa defeated the Republican incumbent governor Greg Abbott, achieving another significant political breakthrough.
American news website Axios points out that InnoHosa is critical of the construction of large data centers, and Texas is precisely an important base for several of Musk's companies.
Interestingly, not long before making the statement about “space lasers”, Musk also wrote on X: “It seems that building data centers in space is quite attractive.”
Axios believes that these remarks seem to be in response to the election results in Texas. However, it is still unclear how the new state government will impact the development plans of Musk’s companies in Texas.
Now, with the Democrats controlling both houses of Congress, Musk's political situation may also change.
