Total

He spent about $450,000,000 in the 2026 election cycle

PACs

America PAC – $220,000,000 into his own PAC, $20,000,000 of which was spent supporting Ken Paxton’s Senate bid in Texas.
SLF – $170,000,000 into the Senate Leadership Fund
CLF – $30,000,000 into the Congressional Leadership Fund
The rest went to other Republican PACs and 100% of the money either opposed Democrats or supported Republicans.

Stock prices

Tesla (TSLA) – Lost $217,000,000,000 in value after the midterms
SpaceX (SPCX) – Lost $240,000,000,000 in value after the midterms

That’s a combined loss just over 1000x the amount he spent on the midterms.

SpaceX’s AI business was affected by the broader selloff in that sector, but both companies’ losses reflect one of our favorite points: the market is somewhat correlated with politics. Especially given his business interests reliance on federal subsidies.

It also reflects the unprecedented lengths Musk went to in order to insert himself directly into the political process during his time overseeing DOGE, which made him one of the most recognizable political figures in the country, especially to the voters who turned out Tuesday.

While his money couldn’t shift a historic wave election, he was far from the only donor contributing tens or even hundreds of millions and most of those are allergic to the spotlight.

Non-wave elections (most of them) are when that money has the biggest impact.

For the rest of the year, we’ll be sharing more money in politics insights like the biggest supporters of each party, win-loss ratios for other megadonors, and the apparent gap between Wall Street’s AI bets and Main Street’s AI ballots. Stay tuned!