US Midterms: Where is Elon Musk spending $366 million? What could a Republican win mean for SpaceX and Tesla? Deep Dive

Elon Musk has committed about $366 million to the 2026 US midterm elections, directing much of his political spending towards Republicans as his companies deepen their reliance on federal contracts and government decisions. With SpaceX securing billions of dollars in public work and Tesla facing important regulatory choices, the outcome of the elections could influence the business environment surrounding Musk’s sprawling corporate empire.

At least $276 million of Musk’s election spending has gone to Republican groups and his political operation, America PAC, since July, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. The spending spans at least 40 races, making Elon Musk the biggest individual donor of the US midterm cycle so far.

The stakes extend beyond which party controls Congress. Republican victories could help preserve Elon Musk’s access to policymakers, while a Democratic takeover of either chamber could bring investigations into his businesses, federal contracts and his previous role leading President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

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Texas is one of the clearest examples of Musk’s political spending intersecting with his business interests. At least $189.6 million of his political money is targeted towards helping Republican Ken Paxton. Paxton is facing Democrat James Talarico in a closely watched Senate contest.

Musk’s business footprint in Texas is substantial. Tesla is headquartered in Austin and operates its largest vehicle factory there, while SpaceX runs a launch facility in South Texas. His tunnelling company, The Boring Company, is also based in the state.

Local decisions on electricity, permits, taxes, infrastructure and economic incentives can affect the companies’ operations and expansion plans.

Elon Musk has also contributed at least $6 million this election cycle, through himself and his trust, to Texas state candidates and political groups, including Governor Greg Abbott, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows.

His political operation is also active in Senate contests outside Texas. America PAC is backing Republican Senator Susan Collins in Maine, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee.

In six other battleground states, the group spent about $22.7 million on general election expenditures through October 20, including approximately $8.9 million in Ohio, $7.2 million in Michigan and $2 million in Maine.

In Michigan, America PAC has supported Republican Mike Rogers and attacked Democrat Abdul El-Sayed through advertising, mailers and voter outreach. In Ohio, the group is spending to help Republican Jon Husted against Democrat Sherrod Brown. Both states are debating the costs and regulation of data centres, an issue with growing significance for the artificial intelligence industry.

SpaceX has received more than $30.7 billion in federal work since 2008, according to FedScout, a research firm tracking government contracts. The company had secured at least $6.78 billion in federal work by October 1, 2026, compared with $3.97 billion in 2025 and $3.8 billion for all of 2024.

SpaceX’s government business includes major defence and space programmes. In late May, the US Space Force awarded SpaceX $2.29 billion for a military communications network linked to the Golden Dome missile shield and another $4.16 billion for threat-detection satellites days later.

Congress does not directly award these contracts, but it funds and oversees agencies such as the Department of Defense and NASA, both major SpaceX customers. Lawmakers can therefore influence the broader budgetary environment in which federal procurement decisions are made.

SpaceX also depends on regulatory decisions. The Federal Aviation Administration licenses launches, while the Federal Communications Commission oversees satellite licences and spectrum used by Starlink. Musk’s artificial intelligence business has additional federal links, including a Pentagon contract with a ceiling of $200 million and an agreement that makes its Grok chatbot available to federal agencies through March 2027.

Tesla’s interests in Washington differ from SpaceX’s, but they also depend on policy. Congress and federal agencies can influence electric-vehicle tax incentives, battery subsidies, autonomous-driving rules and trade policy affecting Chinese competitors. Those decisions could shape Tesla’s costs, competitive position and plans for future growth.

The company has spent about $3.6 million lobbying Washington since January 2025, according to disclosure reports. SpaceX has spent approximately $5.3 million over the same period on issues including defence spending, NASA funding, military launches, missile defence and procurement.

A Republican-controlled Congress could provide continuity in the political relationships Musk has cultivated, but it would not guarantee favourable legislation, contracts or regulatory decisions.

A Democratic takeover of either chamber could create a different set of risks for Musk. Democrats could pursue subpoenas and investigations into his companies, federal contracts and his work at DOGE.

Musk has already experienced the limits of political access. After spending nearly $300 million to support Trump and congressional Republicans in 2024, he gained a prominent role in the administration through DOGE.

His relationship with Trump later deteriorated during a dispute over the president’s tax-and-spending legislation in 2025, with Trump threatening to cut government support and contracts for Musk’s companies.

Sayantani Biswas is an assistant editor at Livemint with seven years of experience covering geopolitics, foreign policy, international relations and global power dynamics. She reports on Indian and international politics, including elections worldwide, and specialises in historically grounded analysis of contemporary conflicts and state decisions. She joined Mint in 2021, after covering politics at publications including The Telegraph. <br> She holds an MPhil in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University (2019), with a specialisation in postcolonial Latin American literature. Her research examined economic nationalism through Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America. She also writes on political language, cultural memory and the long shadows of conflict. <br> Biswas grew up in Durgapur, an industrial town in West Bengal shaped by migration, which drew families from across India to the Durgapur Steel Plant. As the only child in a joint family, she spent years listening—almost obsessively—to her grandparents’ testimonies of struggle, fear and loss as they fled Bangladesh during the Partition of 1947. This formative exposure to lived historical memory later converged with her training in Comparative Literature, equipping her to analyse socio-economic structures and their reverberations. <br> Outside the newsroom, she gravitates towards cultural history and critical theory, returning often to texts such as Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. As a journalist, she is committed to accuracy, intellectual rigour and fairness, and believes political reporting demands not only clarity and speed, but historical depth, contextual precision, and a disciplined resistance to spectacle.

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