US Midterms: Musk and Big Tech Spent Millions and Lost

In the American midterm elections the Democrats won both the House and the Senate, and according to WIRED the money from Elon Musk and the artificial intelligence industry did nothing to prevent it.¹ On its podcast “Uncanny Valley,” the outlet speaks of more than $400 million from Musk’s super PAC (political spending committee) that mostly went to waste, and of a vote that also rejected data centers, the large computing facilities that power AI.¹

How Big the Democrats’ Win Was

To flip Congress, the Democrats had to gain a net four seats in the Senate and three in the House. Podcast host Leah Feiger says they cleared both bars by a comfortable margin.¹ The states mentioned in the discussion include Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Kansas, South Carolina and Michigan. Journalist Hugo Lowell recalls that in 2024 Trump won the swing states by double digits, while on Tuesday those same states shifted by about 10 points toward the Democrats.¹ Lowell attributes the turnaround to the administration’s choices and to the war with Iran, which he judges unpopular and which, in his view, drove prices up. Trump, by contrast, blamed the quality of the candidates and his own absence from the ballot. Part of the MAGA base, the movement of his most loyal supporters, disagrees and blames him and the war.¹

The Texas Case and Musk’s Money

According to ABC News Australia, Musk’s losses were heaviest in Texas, the state where he lives and where Tesla and SpaceX are headquartered. There he reportedly gave about $US212 million to the campaign of Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who lost.² Citing the New York Times, the outlet adds another $US12.3 million to Texan political groups. Together, the two amounts would amount to almost half of Musk’s donations in the 2026 election cycle.² Democrat James Talarico beat Paxton by 12 points and promised to “rein in” the data center industry, by removing tax breaks for developers and making them pay for energy and water. Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who defeated outgoing governor Greg Abbott, promised to block all new permits until the state passes rules protecting Texans.² Shortly after the Democrats’ victory Musk wrote on X: “Data centres in space looking pretty appealing right now.” ABC News Australia reads the comment as a reference to the Big Tech-friendly Republicans who lost despite his funding. The same outlet reports that his net worth has reportedly fallen by $US80 billion.²

The Data Center Referendum and Other Defeats

WIRED describes voters who limited 39 of the 40 data center questions on the ballots, and it called this “the data center referendum.” The same outlet writes that the pro-AI super PAC network, the largest in the sector, had no real impact on the elections.¹ The podcast also points out that the election deniers, who are usually quick to contest results, are this time not challenging their heavy defeats.¹

What Happened on the Stock Market

On Thursday the “Magnificent Seven,” the seven largest US technology companies, lost more than $1,000 billion in market capitalization in a single session, the worst on Wall Street since April 2025 according to AGI. Tesla fell 10.8%, Nvidia 9.3%. The S&P 500 dropped 4.36%.³ AGI links the decline to expectations of new rules and obstacles to the expansion of data centers. According to the same source, Tesla and SpaceX saw $420 billion in market capitalization vanish.³ The sell-off spread to Asia and Europe. NBC News reports that South Korea’s Kospi index lost more than 8%, with a temporary trading halt, and that Taiwan’s TAIEX fell 9%. The analysts the outlet spoke to say markets were penalized according to their dependence on the American investment cycle in AI infrastructure.⁴

Why It Matters

The Texas case suggests that data centers have become a campaign issue and not just an industrial matter. The state accounts for 25% of the data center capacity planned in the US, according to Goldman Sachs, and it has elected a governor and a senator who have promised to limit them.² The market reaction indicates that investors read the vote as a regulatory risk for AI. This does not prove that voters voted against AI as such.³⁴ It remains hard to separate the weight of these issues from that of the cost of living. The editorial in Pakistani newspaper Dawn ties the vote mainly to Trump, tariffs and the war with Iran, which in its view drove prices up, and Lowell’s reading on WIRED points in the same direction.¹⁵

This article was written by artificial intelligence from the sources cited, without human review. Automatic newsroom by Redazia.

Sources

Footnotes

1. How Elon Musk and Big Tech Poured Millions Into the Midterms, and Lost, WIRED, 2026-11-05 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

2. Musk donated millions to pro-data centre midterm candidates – and it backfired, ABC News Australia, 2026-11-06 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. Tonfo in Borsa, le 7 ‘Big Tech’ Usa perdono 1.000 miliardi in un giorno, agi.it, 2026-11-06 ↩ ↩² ↩³

4. Global market rout deepens after midterms intensify AI fears, NBC News · World, 2026-11-06 ↩ ↩²

5. The Democrats’ historic duty, Dawn, 2026-11-06 ↩