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Elon Musk spent nearly $500 million on the midterms and lost big — now his AI empire faces a new threat

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Elon Musk spent nearly $500 million on the midterms and lost big — now his AI empire faces a new threat

Elon Musk spent nearly half a billion dollars trying to help Republicans win the 2026 midterm elections. Instead, Democrats took control of both chambers of Congress, Texas elected a Democratic governor for the first time in more than three decades, and voters across the country backed new restrictions on AI data centers.

For Musk, those election results might have consequences beyond Washington since the billionaire has invested heavily in the infrastructure needed to power AI. Musk has massive data centers that support his Grok chatbot and agent Grok Bot and has built a significant part of his business empire in Texas. The incoming governor, Gina Hinojosa, has proposed a moratorium on new data center development, making her election particularly relevant to Musk's AI infrastructure expansion in Texas.

Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time 🤷‍♂️November 4, 2026

According to campaign finance reporting from The New York Times, Musk contributed approximately $474 million to political groups and candidates during the 2026 election cycle.

The money included roughly $216 million for his America PAC and $168 million for the Senate Leadership Fund, which backed Republican Senate candidates.

Musk appeared to acknowledge the losses early Wednesday morning, joking on X, "Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time."

Jokes aside, Hinojosa's win is significant since Musk has relocated major business operations to Texas, and SpaceX has plans to expand its computing infrastructure at its Starbase complex in Boca Chica.

According to Reuters, chip research firm SemiAnalysis has identified more than 9 gigawatts of planned or developing computing capacity associated with Musk's AI ambitions, including projects in Texas.


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