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Archive photo · 13 January 2025Texas Voters Flip House And Senate; Elon Musk’s Spending Fails To Deliver Republicans
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Democrats win Texas House and Senate, marking a major blue shift in decades. Musk-backed spending failed to deliver Texas for Republicans amid the midterms.
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6 outlets told this the same way.
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Texas flips blue
Texas voters handed Democrats control of the House and Senate, and the state selected James Talarico for the Senate and Gina Hinojosa for governor despite massive Republican spending backed by Elon Musk. Talarico won a Texas Senate race that turned Democrat for the first time since 1988, and Talarico told supporters, "We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas."
Musk’s political spending included a Financial Times figure that his political action committee contributed $47m (£35m) to Republican candidate Ken Paxton’s campaign on top of $158m he gave the Senate Leadership Fund in September, and the BBC said Musk’s millions failed to deliver Texas for Republicans in fierce midterms. Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX shares fell after the election outcome, with the BBC citing a 4.9% drop for Tesla and a 3.4% drop for SpaceX.
Musk’s X posts
Musk took to his platform to spread conspiracy theories about Talarico, posting, "There is something deeply wrong with Talarico" after he briefly disappeared from the campaign trail in October. Talarico responded on the same platform by posting, "There is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator," as the BBC described the midterms as a rebuke to Musk’s influence.
Musk urged his followers on X to vote Republican as recently as Tuesday, and the article framed the result as a Democratic wave that left Musk facing a resurgent Democratic Party he had spent years antagonizing. Musk spent nearly half a billion dollars to back Republican candidates and keep Texas red, while Democrats seized both chambers of Congress and Hinojosa defeated Greg Abbott in the Texas governor’s race.
What comes next
One of Musk’s biggest challenges could be slower approvals for the data centers crucial to tapping the $28.5 trillion addressable market that SpaceX touted to investors ahead of its initial public offering. Jake Dollarhide, CEO of Longbow Asset Management, warned, "A Democratic sweep of Congress would put pressure on tech and potentially bring regulatory pressure on everything AI".
Chip research firm SemiAnalysis identified more than 9 gigawatts of planned or developing capacity, including new facilities at SpaceX's Starbase complex in Boca Chica, Texas. In Texas, Hinojosa said, "Let me be clear: Texas is not for sale," as NBC News described her opposition to the potential sale of a beachfront state park to SpaceX after Texas Monthly reported officials had discussed the deal.