By Basant El-Faramawy
Elon Musk has broken his silence after his $300 million effort to keep Texas’ Republican Senate seat failed in the 2026 midterms. The SpaceX founder posted on X, “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” and “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time,” shortly after Democrat James Talarico claimed victory in Austin.
Talarico celebrates upset victory
Talarico, who defeated Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, told supporters the race was the most expensive Senate contest in U.S. history, with combined advertising spending exceeding $500 million. “We went up against more than $300 million, more than any Senate campaign in American history,” he said, criticizing “negative ads, smear campaigns, foreign bots and AI deepfakes that money can buy.”
Billionaire influence and division
The Democrat framed the contest as a battle between “top vs. bottom” rather than left versus right, accusing billionaires who control social media algorithms and cable networks of dividing Americans by party, race, gender, religion and culture. “Our unity is a threat to their wealth and their power,” he said, calling for a “politics of love.”
Record spending and outside groups
Republican-aligned outside groups spent about $239 million supporting Paxton, led by the Texas PAC super PAC with nearly $149 million. Musk contributed $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, which transferred matching funds to Texas PAC. Democratic outside spending totaled roughly $45 million, while Talarico’s campaign raised $64 million from July through September, 97% from donations under $100.
Negative advertising and fact-checks
Much of the Republican spending funded attacks portraying Talarico as out of step on cultural issues, including claims he supported taxpayer-funded gender-transition surgeries for minors. PolitiFact rated that claim false. A Paxton ad featured an AI-generated version of Talarico reading from a fictional “King James (Talarico) Bible,” which FactCheck.org said lacked context. Talarico responded by calling Paxton “the most corrupt politician in Texas,” referencing Paxton’s 2023 impeachment and acquittal on abuse-of-office allegations and dropped securities-fraud charges.
