Tesla shares fell more than 4.5 percent and SpaceX shares dropped 5 percent in premarket trading on Wednesday, after Democrats claimed sweeping victories in the Midterm elections. SpaceX’s shares slipped below $135, the price at which the company sold shares in its June public offering. The declines contrasted with gains among Nvidia, Meta, Google and the wider market ahead of the trading session.
Elon Musk spent at least $474 million supporting Republican candidates, the most of any donor in a U.S. election cycle aside from candidates financing their own campaigns. About $224 million went toward races in Texas, including support for Ken Paxton’s unsuccessful Senate campaign against James Talarico.
Democratic control of Congress could complicate discussions about a potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla. Some Democrats have indicated they want to investigate Musk and his companies. Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts wrote on X that the prospect of hearings for technology executives would require “new forests” for the subpoenas.
Both companies are headquartered in Texas and are developing infrastructure there, including a joint project to build a chip manufacturing plant costing more than $100 billion. The election also put Gina Hinojosa in line to become the state’s governor, alongside Democratic candidates for attorney general and lieutenant governor.
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He returned to X early Wednesday after largely staying off the platform as votes were counted, writing: “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.” The post referred to SpaceX’s goal of placing artificial intelligence computing clusters in orbit.
According to Bloomberg, Musk was worth $898 billion as of Tuesday, making his election spending a small fraction of his net worth.
Sources: The New York Times Business.