Down $60b, and counting: The midterms’ biggest loser isn’t Trump. It’s Elon Musk

November 5, 2026 — 12:20pm

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Donald Trump may be the biggest loser from the US midterms when power and face are the benchmarks. In financial terms, however, his losses are dwarfed by Elon Musk’s.

That’s not to say that the US president hasn’t lost financially. Shares in his Trump Media plummeted nearly 25 per cent and his crypto interests were also savaged on Wednesday as the extent of the Democrats’ election success became apparent.

According to Forbes’ real-time Billionaires List, Trump – number 632 on the list, with an estimated personal fortune of $US6.4 billion ($9.1 billion) – has lost about $US167 million this week.

That pales in comparison with Musk’s election fallout. According to the same list, the world’s richest man’s net worth is down by more than $US42 billion ($60 billion). Shares in his SpaceX fell more than 6 per cent on Wednesday, while Tesla’s slumped 3.3 per cent.

Moreover, Musk ploughed $US474 million ($675 million) into support for Republican candidates in the elections, including about $US224 million in Texas, where much of it was spent on aggressively negative and highly personal attacks on the Democrat nominee for the Senate, James Talarico.

Not only did Talarico beat the heavily Musk-backed Ken Paxton. Texas – where SpaceX and Tesla are headquartered after Musk moved them from California – now has its first Democrat governor, Gina Hinojosa, in 32 years.

Musk has wasted the best part of half a billion dollars, and this investment was probably counter-productive, as his unprecedented financial backing for the Republican candidates featured heavily in Talarico’s and Hinojosa’s campaigns.

Musk quipped on his X social media platform that his “election-interfering space lasers didn’t work,” but it was another post that shows the real damage that the failure of his efforts to influence the outcome of the elections........

© The Sydney Morning Herald