Elon Musk's $474 Million Political Spending Loss Could Still Benefit Tesla and EVs

Some people think Elon Musk has lost his mind. Others think he’s always been a charlatan and has just had an insane amount of luck. Some people think he’s a genius and that everything he touches will turn to gold. And then there’s also a decent portion of folks who think he’s an absolute idiot about some things but brilliant — or at least very clever — when it comes to others. Whatever you think of Elon Musk, though, there’s no denying he just threw away about half a billion dollars.

Musk reportedly spent at least $474 million on the midterm elections (because one individual is allowed to do that, apparently), and yet his picks — the key people he supported — got completely crushed. The politicians he spent all of that money to get elected did not get elected, and were actually not even close to getting elected. Apparently, voters in their jurisdictions thought they were horrible choices, sometimes historically so. Imagine if all of that money he spent had been spent on something good and useful instead! (Perhaps saving the lives of starving, poverty-stricken children and babies around the world? Perhaps stopping the spread of horrible diseases, since the US government has dropped such efforts on several threats? Perhaps to provide subsidies for electric vehicles, like Tesla sells, since Republicans in Congress and Donald Trump killed those? Perhaps to use solar power instead of fossil fuels to power AI data centers?)

Why did Elon Musk spend a whopping half a billion dollars (or more) on the 2026 midterm elections?

I know there are some people who don’t see this, but it’s been clear for a while that the following things are true about Elon Musk:

• He wants a techno-dictatorship, not a democracy, in the United States, one in which he and his techie billionaire friends get to run the country. Interestingly, this political philosophy and desire extends back to his grandfather’s history, as he pushed for the same thing — explicitly — about a hundred years ago.
• He is superbly naive and idiotic when it comes to politics. (I mean, he spent $474 million or more in a dramatic losing effort, the biggest losing effort since 1974, when Elon was three years old.)
• He either believes a lot of wacky crap or lies profusely about what is happening and what he thinks will happen politically.
• He has absolutely no problem supporting extremely corrupt, anti-democratic politicians (e.g., Donald Trump, Ken Paxton, Greg Abbott). None of these politicians, ironically, support clean energy or electric vehicles, core components of Musk Industries historically.

Musk largely targeted Texas with his political spending, and Texas had an epic, historic blue wave. Something that has been dreamt about for decades came true in dramatic fashion despite Elon Musk spending hundreds of millions of dollars to try to stop it. Ironically, Democratic politicians are the ones who support electric vehicles and solar power, key segments of Musk’s empire. It was California, led by Democrats, that birthed Tesla Motors and enabled it to grow and develop into an industrial behemoth. It was US policies under Democratic presidents and Congresses that also provided critical help for years upon years. So, despite Elon Musk’s worst instincts and biggest efforts politically, will his businesses actually do better under the newly elected Democratic leadership? Perhaps there are some corporate issues that need reigned in or need better regulation, and perhaps people Musk brazenly and often quite rudely campaigned against will squeeze down extra hard on his corporate actions, but policymakers who support cleantech over fossil fuels should, overall, mean more good news than bad news for Tesla and its broader mission, right?

Sure, Musk threw away $474 million and lost bigly, but is he going to be better off from failing in his efforts to pick the people running his current home state and representing it in the US government? What are the actual risks he and his companies face from the people he heavily campaigned against winning their elections? What are the benefits he and Tesla will get from fossil-loving, pollution-peddling Republican politicians no longer running the show in Texas and in Congress? One has to wonder.

By the way, one of the key people Musk campaigned against, James Talarico, has a message specifically for him. “Texas is not for sale,” Talarico said. Musk spent at least $150 million to try to get Talarico’s opponent elected. “The people of Texas delivered a crystal-clear message to the world’s first trillionaire: Texas is not for sale,” Talarico added. “The power in this state, in this country, belongs to the people, and we’ve got to make sure it stays that way.” What do the people want? Well, the people want clean air, clean and cheap energy, and less money in politics. Shouldn’t all of those things help Musk? On that last one, after all, if he wasn’t allowed to pour so much money into politics, he wouldn’t have thrown away half a billion dollars.