‘He basically gets to steer a political party’: Elon Musk is $474 million poorer post-election, but it may not have deterred his influence on 2028
Source: Fortune ·
“It’s not just about who wins,” one political spending expert said. “It's about setting the agenda and what types of issues we talk about.”
From the source
Elon Musk’s nearly half-a-billion dollar bet on Republican midterm victories is a day late and many dollars short, but whether the world’s richest person’s political investments were all for nought remains to be seen. The tech billionaire donated at least $474 million to Republican candidates ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, nearly twice what he donated ahead of the 2024 presidential election. That sum included around $200 million to election efforts in Texas alone. Yet Musk had little to show for it: Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton and Gov. Greg Abbott were both trounced by Democratic opponents. Shares of SpaceX and Tesla, which are both headquartered in Texas, were down on Wednesday following the news. Musks’s other donations included $30 million the the Congressional Leadership Fund, the primary super PAC back of House Republicans, as well as $44 million to other Republicans groups and candidates working to elect federal officials. He joined a16z’s Marc Andreessen and Ben…
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