Musk-Backed Paxton Loses Texas Senate Race to Talarico

James Talarico, a Democrat, defeated Republican Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race, flipping a seat the state had held since 1988, despite tens of millions of dollars in outside spending tied to Elon Musk, BBC News reported, citing figures from the Financial Times.

How much did Musk's network spend on the Texas Senate race?

Musk's political action committee contributed $47m to Paxton's campaign, according to the Financial Times, as reported by BBC News. That came on top of $158m Musk gave earlier to the Senate Leadership Fund in September, the outlet reported. Across the full midterm cycle, Musk was estimated to be the top individual donor to Republican candidates nationally, contributing an estimated $446m through Super PACs, BBC News reported. Super PACs can raise unlimited sums but cannot coordinate directly with campaigns, under federal rules cited in the report.

Why did Paxton lose despite the financial backing?

The BBC report did not detail polling or turnout data explaining the margin, but it noted that the race unfolded amid broader Democratic gains across Congress and that many Democratic candidates nationally campaigned against the expansion of artificial intelligence data centers. The outlet reported that Musk, beyond funding outside groups, used his social platform X to question Paxton's rival directly, posting in October that "there is something deeply wrong with Talarico" after Talarico briefly left the campaign trail.

What did Talarico and Musk say after the result?

In his acceptance speech, Talarico said: "We just proved that all the money in the world is no match for the people of Texas," according to BBC News. He had earlier responded to Musk's online attacks by writing, "There is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator," the outlet reported. Musk, for his part, wrote on X after the results were called: "Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time."

How did markets react to the Democratic takeover of Congress?

Broader US stocks moved higher Wednesday morning following the election outcome, BBC News reported, but shares of two Musk-linked companies moved in the opposite direction: Tesla fell 4.9% and SpaceX-linked shares fell 3.4%, according to the report. The BBC did not attribute the declines directly to the Texas result, reporting them alongside the broader Democratic wins that gave the party control of both chambers of Congress.

What does the loss signal about Musk's political spending?

The Texas outcome marked one of the most expensive Senate races on record, BBC News reported, with Musk's combined contributions to Paxton and allied groups running into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Whether the loss changes Musk's approach to future campaign spending was not addressed in the available reporting, and no figures were provided on spending by other donors in the race for comparison.

For related coverage of the AI infrastructure debate that shaped some midterm campaigns, see HTT News's report on data centers turning to old jet engines for power.