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2 outlets · filed 5 November 2026

Elon Musk Spent Big on the Midterms. His Texas Neighbors Voted Differently

This story is from the archive. It was covered between 5 November 2026 and 6 November 2026, and nothing below has been updated since. See what is happening now.

Cameron County, home to SpaceX's launch site, overwhelmingly backed Democrats despite Elon Musk's spending on Texas Republicans.

What the coverage shows

Most outlets frame the story as a spending blowout that did not translate into Republican gains, with BBC News, The Guardian US, and Wired all emphasizing Musk’s huge outlay and its failure to pay off. The Guardian US is the most explicit about the dollar figure and calls it a “flop,” while BBC News highlights the spending record, and Wired broadens the frame to “Big Tech” more generally. CNBC stands apart by focusing on Tesla and SpaceX’s combined market value loss rather than campaign spending, and Breaking Points appears to use the midterms as a hook for a specific ad discussion rather than the wider spending story.

Written by Crossfiled from the 2 headlines and extracts below, not from the articles themselves. It describes how the outlets framed this, not what happened. Open any headline for a summary of that article.

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How it broke

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