Elon Musk spent at least $446 million trying to move American politics and came up empty in his own backyard — and the establishment press couldn't be happier. But the real story isn't Musk's return on investment. It's who gets to spend, who gets to speak, and who decides.
Business Insider framed the midterms as a "Texas-Sized Failure," declaring Musk the cycle's largest donor and "already one of its biggest losers." The outlet reported that Musk donated roughly $224 million in Texas alone, backing Attorney General Ken Paxton's Senate bid against Democrat James Talarico. Talarico won, becoming the first Democrat to win statewide in Texas in 32 years.
Europe Says offered more texture on why. Paxton barely campaigned. After crushing John Cornyn in the primary runoff, the attorney general "seemed to more or less stop working," giving few interviews and refusing to debate. The race was carried by outside groups "almost exclusively funded by Elon Musk." Europe Says put the Texas price tag at $212 million — money that funded attack ads alleging Talarico wants to ban meat and force gender conversion surgeries on minors.
Talarico, a 37-year-old state representative, ran explicitly against billionaire megadonors buying politicians.
"For five decades now, billionaire megadonors have been buying politicians in both political parties, and then those puppets turn around and rig the rules of the economy in favor of those megadonors at our expense," Talarico told a crowd in San Marcos.
That's a populist message. It's also one the press only amplifies when the billionaire in question is Musk — a man who bought X and broke their grip on public discourse.
Musk's stated concerns were straightforward. He argued on X that Democrats granting statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico and legalizing illegal immigrants would "result in America becoming a permanent one-party state and the end of democracy in any meaningful sense of the word." Whether you find that alarmist or prophetic, it's a legitimate political argument. The press treated it as evidence of extremism.
Meanwhile, the establishment's own extremism was on full display. HotAir reported that NYU professor and podcast host Scott Galloway, appearing with Hillary Clinton on stage in New York, called Musk "a traitor to the west" — to applause. Galloway compared Musk to Charles Lindbergh's prewar sympathy for Nazi Germany and suggested that such betrayal, in another era, would have been met with lethal force.
"We have begun believing through this ridiculous, unhealthy, and dangerous idolatry of innovators that they get to live by an entirely different standard," Galloway said.
The audience clapped. Hillary Clinton was the guest of honor. Nobody in the press corps clutched pearls over a public figure implying the execution of an American citizen for his political views.
Business Insider noted Musk's awareness that Democrats want to haul him before Congress. "Live by the sword, die by the sword," Musk wrote on X. "Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets."
Musk's ROI is genuinely mixed. He spent over $290 million in 2024 helping Trump retake the White House and briefly ran the DOGE office. He dropped $20 million on a Wisconsin Supreme Court race and lost by double digits. He's now lost Texas. The money hasn't guaranteed results.
But here's what the coverage buries: Musk is one man spending his own money, openly, with his name on it. The press celebrating his defeat is itself a concentration of power — owned by conglomerates, staffed by people who move in lockstep, and increasingly hostile to anyone who challenges their authority over what Americans are allowed to see and say.
Talarico compared his win to David beating Goliath. The irony is that the real Goliath — the institutional press, the permanent political class, the tech-media complex that decides which billionaires are acceptable and which are "traitors" — is still standing, and still telling you who won.
