Elon Musk spent almost $450m (£334m) – more than anyone ever has in an election cycle – to back Republican political candidates in the US midterm races. It was not enough to keep Democrats from a resounding victory.
Among the most striking wins went to Democrat James Talarico, who beat Republican Ken Paxton for a US Senate seat in Texas. Musk spent at least $45m in support of Paxton, according to a BBC analysis of campaign finance data.
Other races where Musk spent millions included Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. His spending continued into Monday, records show.
By Tuesday night, Musk seemed to admit defeat, joking on X that his “election-interfering space lasers didn’t work.”
The loss this week of so many Republican seats may have significant implications for Musk and his businesses.
SpaceX has gained an estimated, external $10bn in new government contracts since Trump was elected to his second non-consecutive term. Several democratic lawmakers have said the company’s extensive and growing role in government and national security should be investigated, external.
SpaceX’s future development of massive data centres is also facing new potential difficulties – as are the data centre developments of other tech companies.
In Georgia for instance, where SpaceX has data centre operations, the just elected Democratic governor ran in-part on limiting the rapid rise of the massive buildings, as well as the huge tax breaks tech companies usually get to build them.
A number of other politicians ran on limiting data centres and dozens of state measures to limit their development passed on Tuesday, external.
Data centres are sprawling buildings that house stacks of computing hardware. Tech and artificial intelligence (AI) companies use them to run online platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Musk’s X and his AI company xAI.
Musk posted to X on Tuesday that his previously floated idea to somehow build data centres in space was “looking pretty appealing right now.”
