(AFP) – Tech billionaire Elon Musk joked on Wednesday about Republicans’ defeat in US midterm elections after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to help the party. Democrats seized control of the US Congress on Tuesday, capturing both the Senate and House of Representatives in a stunning rejection of President Donald Trump’s political agenda. “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time,” Musk said on X, including the shrug emoji.
Musk contributed nearly half a billion dollars to Republican political efforts, making him the largest individual contributor in a federal election cycle since unlimited election spending was allowed in 2010, according to campaign finance tracker OpenSecrets. His donations have mostly gone to his Republican-leaning America PAC, as well as to the Republican Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) super PAC. The SLF used Musk’s $158 million in donations in September to support Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate in Texas. The Texas Senate election topped the list in terms of expenditure, with Paxton’s Democrat challenger James Talarico facing more than $200 million in opposition from outside spending groups.
Talarico defeated Paxton, a close ally of Trump, to become the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas since 1994. He took aim at Musk at a victory rally in Austin. “In this race, we went up against our own Goliaths. The richest man in the world, the most powerful man in the world and the entire Washington, DC establishment,” Talarico said. He also targeted billionaires “who own the social media algorithms, who own the cable news networks, who own the politicians fighting on our screens” and who “want us at each other’s throats.”
Democrat Gina Hinojosa unseated incumbent Texas Governor Greg Abbott in another blow to the deeply conservative southern border state. Hinojosa said she asked at the start of her campaign if Texas was “a state that is by and for the people of Texas.” “Or is this the billionaire’s world and we just live here? Does Texas belong to the parents and their children? Or the billionaires trying to dismantle our schools? Does Texas belong to the farmers and ranchers who have worked this land for generations? Or the corporations trying to buy it up?” she said after her victory.
Talarico and Hinojosa both campaigned on tighter regulations for AI data centers. The spread of data centers across Texas has become a central issue as residents worry about rising electricity bills, water use, and strain on the power grid. Musk has moved the headquarters of his companies Tesla, SpaceX, and X to Texas. “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” Musk joked on X after the result.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that the government cannot limit political spending by corporations, unions, and other groups if they spend it independently of candidates. A lower court decision ruled that these organizations could also raise an unlimited amount of money from donors. Now, big donors can allocate vast sums of money to try to influence elections and remain anonymous by donating through secondary organizations. Spending sprees by donors have surged under Trump’s administration, with Musk’s large donations encapsulating the new reality of pay-to-play politics.
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