Elon Musk spent the final hours before polls closed on Tuesday urging his followers to “Vote red today!” By the early hours of Wednesday morning, the post was gone — quietly deleted as results rolled in showing Republicans suffering a historic drubbing across the country, including in Musk’s adopted home state of Texas.
Musk had poured an extraordinary amount of money into keeping Republicans in power this cycle. Estimates of his total midterm spending vary by outlet, ranging from roughly $150 million to more than $470 million, with a large share of it directed at Texas races. The centerpiece of that bet was Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign, which Musk backed with around $212 million. Paxton lost to Democrat James Talarico in what’s being described as a landslide, ending a 32-year Republican winning streak in Texas Senate races. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, another Musk ally, was unseated as well.
The scale of the loss is notable given how closely Musk has tied himself — and his companies — to the state. He relocated himself and several of his businesses from California to Texas in recent years, moving Tesla, SpaceX, X and The Boring Company’s operations there, and has been expanding further with new offices for xAI in downtown Austin. Musk has also leaned on the state’s business-friendly politics and his personal relationship with Abbott to grow his footprint.
Musk largely stayed silent as the results came in on election night, before eventually posting about building “data centers in space” given the regulatory mood on the ground. Voters in Texas and Ohio specifically pushed back against the kind of AI datacenter buildout Musk and the broader industry have been counting on, a trend that could complicate plans for Texas to become the world’s largest datacenter market by the end of the decade.
The deleted “Vote red today!” post is being read by many as an attempt by Musk to quietly distance himself from a campaign that backfired badly — both politically and financially. He has spent much of the past two years positioning himself as one of the Republican Party’s most important donors and a close ally of President Trump, a shift that has not come without cost. Tesla has weathered boycotts, vandalism and persistent brand damage tied to Musk’s political activity, and the company’s stock slid again as the midterm results came in, dragging broader tech sentiment down with it.
The election also leaves Musk more politically exposed than he has been in years. With Democrats now set to control both chambers of Congress, lawmakers who have spent months signaling interest in investigating his tenure at the Department of Government Efficiency, his government contracts, and his business dealings in Texas now have the votes to act on it. Musk has previously warned Democrats against pursuing such investigations, but the midterm results suggest he will have far less political cover going forward.
For now, Musk has moved on to posting about his companies’ products as usual, with no comment on the deleted post or the election results beyond his space-laser joke.