American billionaire Elon Musk loses $34 billion as Tesla, SpaceX fall after midterms

American billionaire Elon Musk lost about $34 billion on Wednesday as shares of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX fell for a full session after Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, a day after he urged his followers on X to "Vote red today!"

Tesla closed down about 3.3% and SpaceX about 3.8% in New York, even as the broader market rallied. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 1,500 points, or 3%, the S&P 500 rose 1.6% and the Nasdaq Composite added 1.4%. Musk's net worth fell 3.7% to $867.9 billion at the close, according to Forbes, from $901.7 billion on Tuesday.

The losses were deeper in early trading. Tesla was down more than 5% and SpaceX more than 7% at the open before both pared their declines. SpaceX traded at about $137 on Wednesday morning, just above the $135 price at which it went public in June. Tesla is down about 14% this year.

The deleted post

The "Vote red today!" post was no longer on Musk's X timeline on Wednesday morning, as results showed Republicans losing seats across the country, including in Texas, where Musk lives and runs much of his business. He did not respond to questions about why it was removed. Posts in which he called James Talarico, the Democrat who won the Texas Senate race, a "far extreme leftist," a "creep" and "pure evil" remained online.

Musk posted twice about the results in the early hours of Wednesday. "Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time," he wrote at about 1 a.m. Eastern time. Later, replying to a post about voters, he wrote: "Voter ID failed in California."

Musk gave more than $445 million to Republican causes in the 2026 cycle, the most any individual has given in a single U.S. election, with about $225 million going to races in Texas. Talarico beat Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, whom Musk backed with more than $200 million, and Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated Gov. Greg Abbott.

Data centers and subpoenas

The Texas result is a direct concern for Musk's companies. Hinojosa has pledged a statewide moratorium on new data center construction, and Tesla and SpaceX are planning a $100 billion chip plant in the state.

"Hinojosa is a known anti-data center politician and negative on the AI buildout," Dan Ives, a managing director at Yorkville, wrote in a note on Wednesday. "SpaceX and Musk are clearly caught front and center in this spiderweb." Ives said the shift in Washington and Austin could slow 800 to 1,000 planned artificial intelligence data centers across the U.S., and that Texas is expected to supply 25% to 30% of the country's data center capacity. He remains bullish on the sector over the long term.

A Democratic Congress could also look closely at a possible combination of Tesla and SpaceX, which Musk's companies have been exploring, although lawmakers would not necessarily be able to block it. Some Democrats have said they will examine Musk's role as a federal contractor. Sen. Edward Markey of Massachusetts, replying to a post asking about televised hearings for Big Tech executives, wrote: "They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we'll be printing."

Musk's own response on election night pointed elsewhere. "Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now," he wrote on X.

Musk, 55, is chief executive officer of Tesla and SpaceX and the world's richest person. Most of his fortune comes from his stakes in the two companies, so daily swings in their shares move his net worth by tens of billions of dollars.