technology ·
Musk makes light of defeats after record spend on Republican candidates
Republicans were decisively routed by Democrats in Tuesday’s polls, losing control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, while racking up losses in states long seen as Republican strongholds, such as Texas and Kansas.
“Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time,” the Tesla and SpaceX founder wrote on X, which he owns, on Wednesday. Musk reportedly spent $446m supporting Republican candidates in the elections, making him the top donor. His donations have mostly gone to his own Republican-leaning political action committee, America PAC, and to the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) super PAC.
The SLF used Musk’s $158m in donations in September to support Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate candidate in Texas, who lost to Democrat James Talarico. Voters rejected Paxton’s plan to make Texas the centre of the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry by quickly building data centres. Talarico campaigned for tighter regulations on their development. Musk took to X to joke: “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now”.
