Musk just burned $446m on midterms and got basically nothing

Elon Musk bet nearly half a billion dollars on Republicans this midterm cycle. It was a spectacular flop.

The Tesla and SpaceX boss dropped at least $446m into Republican-aligned Super PACs and groups, crushing his previous 2024 record of $290m. He specifically targeted key Senate races, banking on keeping GOP control of Congress under a potential Trump administration. Seemed straightforward enough.

Then Tuesday happened. Democrats swept across the country, and Musk's massive wad of cash basically evaporated. No return. No Senate seats secured the way he'd hoped. Just hundreds of millions in the wind.

For context, that's real money even by billionaire standards. $446m could've funded thousands of schools, rebuilt infrastructure in a mid-sized city, or—you know—literally anything else. Instead it went to candidates who lost.

The spending was historic. Musk's become one of the single largest political donors in American history, and this cycle cemented it. But history doesn't always reward you for showing up with the biggest checkbook. Sometimes you just lose.

What's wild is he clearly believed in the strategy enough to nearly double his 2024 spending. That kind of commitment suggests he thought this was the moment it'd pay off. Turns out the electorate had other plans. And now he's sitting with the bill for a bet that didn't land.