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Analysis of the midterms: How Elon Musk shot himself in both knees
With almost $500 million in campaign support and his propaganda platform X, Elon Musk wanted to influence the election results. But the project blew up in his face. For the tech mil
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With almost $500 million in campaign support and his propaganda platform X, Elon Musk wanted to influence the election results. But the project blew up in his face. Things will now get more uncomfortable for the tech billionaires.
Tech billionaires tried to help the Republicans win in the US midterm elections with huge campaign donations. But the landslide electoral successes of the Democrats have shown that elections and voters cannot be bought. Instead of right-wing election victories, the donors only managed to turn the mood against them.
Elon Musk excelled at financing. His strategy didn't work on several levels.
Musk invested a record sum of at least $474 million in the Republican election campaign. That's more than five times as much as thathttps://www.wiwo.de/politik/bundetagswahl-2025-das-kostet-der-wahlkampf...The federal election campaign of all parties cost money.
But Musk's mega-investment turned out to be a flop. The Democrats wonhttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/nov/04/elon-musk-midterm-spe...the Guardian reports, in those five states of all placeshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America_PAC">Musks“America Pac”had invested the most money, all the senatorial positions.
“Defender of a broken, corrupt political system”
The richest man in the world had invested the most money in the Republican stronghold of Texas - more than $200 million. Won therehttps://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/11/blue-texas-james-talarico-g...Democratic candidate James Talaricoand almost all other Democratic candidates.
Musk's election campaign is likely to cause his reputation in the USA to further deteriorate. In the run-up to the election, Talarico had sharply attacked the billionaire and his communication methods, saying, according to the Guardian, at a campaign event:
If you saw a negative ad on your screens, it was most likely Elon. If you found lies in your mailbox, it was Elon. If you received a text message with scary statements about me and scary black and white photos, that was Elon too.
Talarico also campaigned with the slogan “Texas is not for sale.” In hishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK8wzjBpEoQ">worth seeingVictory speechTalarico attacked Musk - without naming him - as a "defender of a broken, corrupt political system" and compared him to the biblical Goliath, who was defeated by David, the population.
He, Talarico, won against the most expensive campaign of all time, against negative advertising, foreign bots, AI deepfakes and everything that money can buy. “These attacks are the last cries of a dying establishment,” Talarico told his supporters. He also called for the reform of an economic system “from which only the top one percent benefits.”
“Oligarchs who manipulate the system”
In other states, election winners also attacked billionaires and their political influence. In Georgiahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erzdys7_OXo">spokeSenator Jon Ossoffof “dark money super pacs”, i.e. election campaign organizations into which money flows in a non-transparent and practically unregulated manner. The “Titans of Silicon Valley” would dig shelters for themselves while warning that the artificial intelligence they created could wipe out humanity.
The fact is that “for far too long we have been immersed in a petty and selfish politics” that is detached from moral principles and resigned to divisions. This policy was bought by “Big Money”.
The new left-wing senator from Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, also castigated himhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMNEKYd3Pb8">inhis victory speech“the ugliest campaign of our lives” against him and the Democrats. It was financed by companieshttps://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing">Astroturf-Campaignacted that was designed to deceive and distract.
It is now about “protecting us all from the big business oligarchs who have bought and sold our government in order to manipulate the system to our disadvantage.”
Investigations probably
The sharp rhetoric could now be followed by action. With the new majority of Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives, it is possible for investigations to get rolling.
Such would not only be the casehttps://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/11/05/musk-midterm-texas-ta...of the election campaignpossible, or toohttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/nov/04/robert-garcia-trump-over...Role at DOGE, but also tohttps://www.propublica.org/article/elon-musk-texas-legislature-laws-spac...Impact on Texasas well as thehttps://www.politico.com/news/2026/10/20/elon-musk-democrats-oversight-0...operations on government contractsfrom Musk and the other tech billionaires. This could become uncomfortable for the tech bros, who could, for example, be forced to testify before Congress.
For Musk, the Democratic victory in Texas is particularly bitter. He moved his company headquarters from liberal California to Republican Texas in 2021 - and was courted by politicians there. But the tide has also turned in state politics,https://thehill.com/homenews/6197088-democrat-nathan-johnson-wins-texas-...Attorney General is now a Democrat, what for the Republicans and Muskhttps://www.vox.com/politics/509225/texas-attorney-general-litigation-pi...dangerousis.
Various Democratic representatives had already announced in the past that they would...https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/10/democrat-texas-ag-candid...Investigate companies for corruptionwant. Democrats, who ran with a clear anti-corruption agenda in Texas and elsewhere, are under pressure to deliver on the issue.
Trapped in old memes and the X‑Bubble
Trouble threatens elsewhere. The takeover of Twitter, which Musk led tohttps://netzpolitik.org/tag/x/">rightPropaganda platform Xrebuilt, is now having negative side effects for the right. The takeover drove all people and organizations that had any sense and decency off the platform and initially tore a hole in the progressive camp's ability to communicate. But what initially looked like a success could now turn against the right-wing itself.
Because the remaining bubble, which above all strengthens itself andhttps://netzpolitik.org/2025/studien-zu-algorithmen-tiktok-und-x-pushen-...Algorithms reinforcedwill, threatenshttps://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10098-2">therebylosing touch with the issues that actually concern the population outside of X.
Make this thesishttps://bsky.app/profile/edburmila.bsky.social/post/3mzh4my2qec2s">someCommentatorsand media on,https://www.404media.co/republicans-learn-x-is-an-echo-chamber/">including404Media. There, author Matthew Gault describes which memes and topics Republican supporters and influencers were concerned with before the election:
A majority of Trump supporters spent the week before an election in which they would suffer a crushing defeat using AIhttps://www.wired.com/story/the-online-rights-closing-campaign-argument-...Readable Anakin and Malfoid memesfor an insignificant insider group on the social media platform run by the biggest loser on the planet.
Michael Senters, an expert on online and gaming culture, told the medium that meme culture has passed its peak and that reality has finally caught up with Republicans.
Narratives that are far removed from life
Gault writes that the election defeat makes it clear how out of touch with reality the X-obsessed billionaires and their followers have actually become. He traces how influencers and the Republican scene are trapped in the social media and meme past of 2016 - and can therefore no longer reach young people. In the target group ofhttps://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/ Amerika/midterms-projekte-analyse-10...-29 year olds, for example, Talarico got 79 percentof the votes.
Irony of history: Of all things, the political assessments of the X-Alternative Bluesky, which was repeatedly laughed at by the right-wing camp as a “woke” bubble, were closer to reality,https://www.fastcompany.com/91635647/bluesky-was-right-all-along-and-will...Joe Berkowitz at FastCompany writes.
An example of the remoteness of the right-wing narrative is now also truehttps://glaad.org/2026-midterm-election-results-anti-trans-fearmongering...Failure of the anti-transgender sentiment. The Republicans gave advertising on this issuehttps://apnews.com/article/transgender-ads-midterms-republicans-cultural...AP spent $183 million. But which voters are interested in hate speech against trans people when they are confronted with high gas and living costs as well as a slashed healthcare system?
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