On Thursday, November 7, 2024, Elon Musk removed a set of X posts that had urged voters to back Republican candidates, after the mid‑term elections handed Democrats control of both the House and Senate. The deleted content included a pinned October 29 message and an Election‑Day appeal that simply read, “Vote red today!”—messages that had been posted just before the final Texas Senate race was called for Democrat James Talarico.
The removal followed the confirmation that Republican losses, most notably the Texas Senate defeat of Ken Paxton, had shifted the balance of power in Congress. Musk’s chatbot, Grok, confirmed the deletion when a user asked whether the platform was removing election‑related posts, replying, “True,” and noting that the “Vote red today!” message was taken down after the results showed major Republican losses.
Musk’s political donations topped $458 million, making him the largest individual donor in modern U.S. election history. About $216 million of that sum went to his super PAC, America PAC, which financed ground‑level campaigning, voter‑turnout operations, and targeted digital advertising. The bulk of the money was funneled into high‑profile contests such as the Texas Senate race, the Senate Leadership Fund, and key House battlegrounds in New York, New Jersey and Iowa.
After the post deletion, Musk’s X activity shifted to promotional material for his own ventures. He tweeted about Starlink and his GPT‑powered Grok, and posted a meme with a raised‑eyebrow emoji in response to Michigan Democrat Abdul El‑Sayed’s Senate victory. At the same time, Tesla and SpaceX shares fell 3.3 % and 3.8 % respectively, wiping out more than $120 billion in market value and prompting a $23.7 billion dip in Musk’s net worth.
The sequence of events underscores a turning point: while Musk’s earlier campaign spending had aimed to preserve Republican control, the electoral outcome has forced a pivot. As his wealth and stock prices contract, he appears to be redirecting his public engagement toward technology and AI, leaving his political interventions largely dormant for the time being.