Talarico wins Senate seat
James Talarico won the Texas Senate race, taking the seat for Democrats for the first time since 1988. He defeated Republican Ken Paxton despite a $47m contribution from Elon Musk’s political action committee to the Paxton campaign. The billionaire also gave an additional $158m to the Senate Leadership Fund in September. Talarico said, "We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas." The X owner used his social media platform, X, to post "There is something deeply wrong with Talarico" after the Democrat briefly left the campaign trail in October. Talarico responded to the post: "There is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator." Musk jokingly wrote on X, "Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time."
Spending totals and market reaction
Musk became the top individual donor in the midterms by providing an estimated $446m to Republican candidates through Super Pacs. These groups can raise unlimited sums but cannot coordinate with campaigns or give directly to candidates. Individuals and traditional groups face legal limits. Super Pacs spend independently, such as by purchasing ads to support a candidate. The billionaire provided hundreds of millions to Donald Trump’s winning campaign. He became one of the Republican Party’s biggest donors in 2024, pouring hundreds of millions into the presidential campaign. Talarico’s win helped the Democrats take full control of the US Congress. Musk’s companies saw stock declines on Wednesday morning, as Tesla fell by 4.9% and SpaceX fell by 3.4%. Many Democrats campaigned heavily against the expansion of artificial intelligence data centres during the election. Musk maintains a large presence in Texas through the SpaceX Starbase launch site and the Tesla headquarters in Austin.
Although Musk spent millions of dollars to support Ken Paxton through outside groups, his massive financial efforts failed to prevent a Democratic victory in Texas after he used his platform to post conspiracy theories about the opponent. An eye-watering amount of money was not enough to secure the seat for the Republicans this time around, even with the support of the billionaire’s various Super Pacs.
