Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has joked about the Republican Party’s defeat in the US midterm elections after spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support its candidates.
Gatekeepers News reports that the Democrats secured control of both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, delivering a major setback to President Donald Trump’s political agenda.
Reacting to the outcome on Wednesday, Musk took to X to make a sarcastic remark about his political spending.
“Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time,” Musk wrote, adding a shrug emoji.
According to campaign finance tracker OpenSecrets, Musk contributed nearly half a billion dollars to Republican political efforts, making him the largest individual donor in a federal election cycle since unlimited election spending was permitted in 2010.
His donations were largely channelled through his Republican-leaning America PAC and the Republican Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) super PAC.
The SLF reportedly used $158 million in donations from Musk in September to support Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate in Texas.
However, Paxton, a close ally of Trump, was defeated by Democrat James Talarico, who became the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas since 1994.
Talarico took aim at Musk during his victory rally in Austin, describing the contest as a battle against powerful political and financial interests.
“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,” he said.
Musk’s reaction comes amid a major political setback for Republicans, whose loss of congressional control is expected to complicate Trump’s legislative agenda and reshape the political landscape ahead of the next election cycle.
