Texas senator takes swipe at Elon Musk after he spent $224m trying to stop him from winning
Following the Democrats’ landslide victory in the midterm elections earlier this week, a newly appointed Texas senator has seemingly taken a public swipe at Elon Musk, who plowed hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Republican campaigns.
On Tuesday (November 3), James Talarico was elected as the first Democratic Senator in Texas since 1988. Speaking to CBS Mornings, he took aim at Musk, saying: “I think last night the people of Texas delivered a crystal-clear message to the world’s first trillionaire. Texas is not for sale. The power in this state, in this country, belongs to the people. And we got to make sure it stays that way.”
The tech mogul had been a strong supporter, both vocally and financially, of the Republican candidates, with the world’s richest man having spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Republican political action committees (PACs) during the midterm election cycle.
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Musk spent roughly $212 million directly supporting Talarico’s opponent, Republican Ken Paxton, in the Texas Senate campaign. Overall, the Tesla boss threw a whopping $445 million to $474 million behind the campaigns of Republican candidates during the midterm elections. According to a report by the Guardian, this makes Musk the biggest single-cycle political donor in modern US history.
However, Talarico isn’t the only Democrat to speak out following the results, with Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar describing the shift in the balance of power as being ‘the early tremor of a much bigger AI earthquake upending American politics’.
Meanwhile, Senator Ed Markey stated: “They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing.”
This comes as Democratic lawmakers are expected to use their mandate to increase scrutiny of AI policies, which could be bad news for the likes of Musk and other tech bosses.
Musk took to his usual soapbox to react to the election results - his own social media platform X, formerly Twitter, where he wrote: “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time.”
In another tweet, he said: “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman also spoke out on X. He wrote: “People should always be in control of the future. OpenAI is against the notion that it would be acceptable for people to be relegated to a role of doing things that ‘AI systems think makes sense to reward in humans’.
“People should not cede control of the future to superintelligence, and that requirement should ultimately constrain AI progress.”
It is not yet clear to what extent tech bosses can expect to face scrutiny, with some questioning whether further investigations into government partnerships with tech companies may take place.
However, Democratic Representative Robert Garcia, who is expected to take over as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, issued a blunt warning to those who could find themselves under investigation, simply stating: “Lawyer up.”
