Musk’s midterm losses check out, but nothing shows his spending caused them

Verdicts

• Mostly TrueFuturism: “Elon Musk blew $447 million to support Republican candidates in the midterm elections — and almost every single cent of it went to waste.”Published tallies run from “more than $445 million” (Quartz) to at least $474 million (The New York Times, from FEC, IRS and state filings through Oct. 14), so $447 million sits at the low end. WIRED found that more than 99 cents of every traceable dollar he put into a decided race went to a race he lost. Some of the money opposed Republicans in primaries, and some Musk-backed candidates won, which the article’s later line about candidates “who all lost” gets wrong.
• TrueFuturism: Tesla “fell 3.3 percent” and SpaceX “3.8,” wiping out more than $120 billion, leaving Musk “some $30 billion poorer.”Exchange closes confirm Tesla fell from $398.50 to $385.19 (3.3%) and SpaceX from $141.31 to $135.92 (3.8%) on Nov. 4. At current share counts that is about $126 billion in market value; Bloomberg says nearly $130 billion. Bloomberg’s index put Musk’s Wednesday loss at $33.5 billion, and Forbes put his loss by Wednesday morning alone at $34.5 billion, so “some $30 billion” is, if anything, low.
• Mostly TrueImplied: Democrats’ wins on Nov. 3 caused Musk’s fortune to fall.On Nov. 4 both stocks fell while the S&P 500 rose 1.7%, and Bloomberg, CNBC and even the Tesla fan site Teslarati tied the drop to the Texas results. The larger fall came Nov. 5 (about $80 billion by both indexes), when the Nasdaq fell more than 5% in an AI-stock selloff that also hit Dell, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Larry Ellison. The election plausibly contributed to that day too, but it was not the only cause.
• UnprovenImplied: Musk’s election spending, not only the election result, is what cost him billions.Market reporting ties the drop to who won (a Texas governor who wants a data-center pause, and a Congress promising investigations), not to how much Musk spent. Nothing public shows his money changed any result. Bloomberg says CNN exit polls suggested the Texas Senate vote reflected sentiment toward Musk, but we could not read those polls, and a sentiment is not a cause. Nothing public shows whether the results or his stocks would have differed had he spent nothing.
• Mostly TrueFuturism headline: “Elon Musk Deletes Smug Election Posts After They Backfire.”Forbes reported that a pinned Oct. 29 post urging votes for Republican senators came down early Wednesday, around the time Talarico claimed victory. The evidence that he also deleted his “Vote red today!” post is an answer from his own chatbot, Grok, which Forbes reported. Musk has not commented. “Smug” is Futurism’s characterization.

What Musk spent, and where it went

Futurism’s $447 million matches none of the published totals exactly, but it is close to the low end. Quartz says Musk “contributed more than $445 million.”^[9] Bloomberg’s own story says “nearly $450 million.”^[8] Forbes counts “at least $458 million,” citing FEC filings and other reporting.^[4] The New York Times found $474 million in disclosed gifts since Jan. 1, 2025, from FEC, IRS and state records, the most any donor has given in a cycle other than self-funding candidates, and says even that is low because federal records ran only to Oct. 14 and Musk also gave dark money.^[3] The totals differ because they count different things over different dates. None of them is close enough to the others to pin down a single figure.

FEC filings confirm the scale of the biggest pieces. Raw e-filings list Musk gifts of $75 million (Sept. 9) and $83 million (Sept. 23) to the Senate Leadership Fund, and tens of millions to America PAC in August through October, including $43.2 million on Oct. 14.^[12][13] The Times puts about $216 million into America PAC and $168 million into the Senate Leadership Fund, which in turn funded the Texas Senate fight.^[3]

“Support Republican candidates” is mostly accurate but not entirely. WIRED reports that Lone Star Liberty PAC, which Musk’s trust funded with $10 million, spent $3.6 million against Sen. John Cornyn and $3.1 million against Rep. Wesley Hunt in the Texas primary, and that Fight for Kentucky, another $10 million Musk vehicle, spent $3.8 million attacking Rep. Andy Barr. All three are Republicans. Barr won the Kentucky Senate seat on Tuesday.^[2]

On waste, the best count comes from WIRED: candidates backed by America PAC had lost 20 races and won one, with 21 uncalled, by Wednesday morning, and “of every traceable dollar Musk put into a race that has now been decided, more than 99 cents went to a race he lost.”^[2] America PAC ran ads in seven Senate races and lost all six that had been called.^[2] Forbes counted more broadly: of 106 House and Senate candidates with Musk’s support, 19 had won by noon Wednesday, “all in seats Republicans were expected to win anyway,” 47 had lost, and 40 were uncalled.^[5] So “almost every single cent” holds by the dollar, while the article’s closing line, that he spent the money on “candidates … who all lost,” does not hold by the candidate.

The Associated Press called both chambers for Democrats. As of Wednesday afternoon they had flipped seven Republican-held Senate seats, including Texas, where James Talarico beat Ken Paxton, and more than two dozen House seats.^[14] Futurism’s “swept … governorship races” overreaches: Democrats won Texas, where Gina Hinojosa beat Gov. Greg Abbott, but Republican Byron Donalds won Florida.^[15]

What the stocks did

The share moves match exchange data exactly. Closing prices from the consolidated tape:^[18][19]

Percent changes and dollar values computed from the closes above and current shares outstanding (Tesla 3.95 billion, SpaceX 13.58 billion). SpaceX trades on Nasdaq as SPCX.

At current share counts, Wednesday’s drop erased about $52.6 billion of Tesla’s value and $73.2 billion of SpaceX’s, roughly $126 billion together. Bloomberg, updating after the close, put it at “nearly $130 billion.”^[8] Futurism’s “over $120 billion” is right.

For Musk personally, Bloomberg’s index recorded a $33.5 billion loss on Wednesday, according to Quartz, and Forbes recorded $34.5 billion by Wednesday morning alone.^[9][6] We could not read the Financial Times piece Futurism cites for “$30 billion,” but two independent indexes put the figure slightly higher. On Thursday he lost about $80 billion more: the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, last updated Nov. 5, shows him at $785 billion, down $79.7 billion, and Forbes’ real-time page shows $789.5 billion, down $79.4 billion.^[16][17] He is still the richest person on both lists.

“First trillionaire” and other records

Futurism calls Musk “the world’s first — and first former — trillionaire.” Forbes’ profile says he became the first trillionaire on June 12, when SpaceX went public, and both indexes now put him below $1 trillion.^[17][16] Quartz, citing Bloomberg, puts his peak at $1.3 trillion.^[9] The phrase is accurate, with one wrinkle: Forbes says he has hit trillionaire status multiple times since June, most recently in October, so he has been a “former” trillionaire several times.^[6][17]

Compared against: every person ranked by the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list and the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. No one else on either list comes close: Bloomberg’s No. 2 on Nov. 5, Jeff Bezos, is at $370 billion.^[16]

The Times’ record for donations, the most any donor has given in one cycle apart from self-funders, with Michael Bloomberg’s 2020 presidential run the only larger total, appears in our sources, not in Futurism’s article. We report it as the Times’ finding and did not test it against every past cycle.^[3] Forbes calls Thursday “one of the largest hits ever” to his net worth, and notes it fell $350 billion over the course of June.^[7]

What the article implies

That the election caused his fortune to fall

For Wednesday, the evidence is strong. Tesla fell 3.3% and SpaceX 3.8% on a day when the S&P 500 rose 1.7% and the Nasdaq-100 rose 1.0%, a gap of more than four percentage points for each.^[18] Bloomberg wrote that the broader market and most of Tesla’s Magnificent Seven peers “advanced Wednesday despite the blue wave.”^[8] CNBC reported that analysts saw the Texas governor’s race as the key risk; a Wells Fargo strategist had said the market reaction “mostly depends on the outcome of the Texas governor’s race.”^[10] Hinojosa campaigned on pausing new data centers, which are central to SpaceX’s AI business.^[6] Even Teslarati, a site friendly to Musk’s companies, said the decline “stood out as broader market securities recovered.”^[11]

Thursday was different. The Nasdaq Composite fell more than 5% and the S&P 500 4% as investors sold AI chip and data-center stocks.^[9] Forbes says Dell, Ellison, Zuckerberg and Huang lost billions on Thursday too.^[7] Forbes tied that selloff to the “blue wave” but also said AI stocks were already under pressure before Election Day.^[7] Tesla fell 4.3 points more than the Nasdaq-100 proxy and SpaceX 2.6 points more, but volatile stocks often fall harder than the index in a selloff, so that gap alone does not isolate an election effect.^[18] Futurism’s article covers only the first day and the $30 billion, and for that window the implied cause holds. Readers who carry the claim forward to the full two-day loss of about $113 billion (by Bloomberg’s count) are crediting the election with a selloff that had other drivers.

That his spending cost him the billions

Futurism’s headline says Musk’s election posts backfired. The body goes further: he “blew $447 million,” and “those were just the beginning of his losses.” A reader takes away that the bet itself cost him the billions. The evidence shows two separate facts sitting next to each other: Musk spent heavily on races his side lost, and his stocks fell after his side lost. What moved the stocks, per Bloomberg and CNBC, was the policy risk from the winners: a Texas government that could slow data centers^[8][10] and revisit Musk’s incentives,^[2][11] and a Congress whose members are promising subpoenas.^[2] That risk would exist whether Musk had spent $450 million or nothing.

The case for “backfire” is that the money made Musk a target. When Musk attacked Talarico in October, Talarico answered that the political system lets “one trillionaire” buy “his own personal US Senator,” and Bloomberg says the Texas Senate outcome “was also seen to reflect voter sentiment toward the Republican donor, as indicated in exit polls reported by CNN.”^[2][8] We could not read those exit polls. Democrats flipped seven Senate seats and more than two dozen House seats nationally.^[14] In a wave that size, separating the effect of Musk’s money from the national mood would take race-level evidence nobody has published. Saying he spent and lost is accurate. Saying the spending caused his losses is not shown.

What people are saying

Critics have run with the loss. The Daily Beast’s headline said Musk was “Burning $500M,” rounding up the $474 million figure in its own story.^[20] Futurism’s own line, candidates “who all lost,” is wrong by Forbes’ count of 19 winners.^[5] Musk himself posted about 1 a.m. that his “election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time,” and Forbes reported that he removed a pinned Oct. 29 post urging votes for Republican senators.^[5] Forbes’ evidence that he also deleted his “Vote red today!” post includes an answer from his own chatbot, Grok, which is weak sourcing for a deletion.^[5]

On the other side, the fairest defense is that Thursday’s rout hit all of tech, and the record supports that part.^[7][9] A defense that the election did not move Musk’s stocks at all does not survive Wednesday’s tape, and even Musk-friendly coverage attributed Wednesday’s drop to the results.^[11]

What it means

The financial stakes for Musk now run through Austin as much as Washington. Incoming Texas Attorney General Nathan Johnson told NBC News he intends to investigate Musk, and Hinojosa has pledged a pause on new data centers until the legislature regulates them, according to Forbes.^[6] Quartz notes that Republicans still hold the Texas Legislature, which limits how far she can go.^[9] In Congress, Democrats have named DOGE, federal contracts and Starlink in Ukraine as targets, and Forbes, citing the New York Times, says they could move to oppose a Tesla–SpaceX merger.^[6][3] These are forecasts, not events.

For readers, the useful distinction is between a net-worth swing and a cost. Musk’s $450-plus million in donations is money he spent. The $34 billion is a paper markdown on shares he still holds, and it can reverse: Bloomberg notes Tesla rose more than 90% in about a month after the 2024 election, and the gains later unwound.^[8] Treating the paper loss as a price voters made him pay mixes up the two.

Parties affected