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TS Teddy Schleifer Teddy Schleifer Reporter at The New York Times who covers money in politics: billionaire donors, super PACs, dark money and campaign finance, including Elon Musk's spending on...

“Musk spent nearly $500 million on the midterms. It's the most that anybody's ever spent on an election when they were not the candidate themselves. This is a dramatic failure for him. Campaigns are binary, about winning versus losing, and his people lost.”

Big Technology · Tech Strategy & Big Tech · November 2026

“Musk spent nearly $500 million on the midterms. It's the most that anybody's ever spent on an election when they were not the candidate themselves. This is a dramatic failure for him. Campaigns are binary, about winning versus losing, and his people lost.” — Teddy Schleifer, Big Technology

Context

The host noted Schleifer's post-election scorecard, which said Musk, big Republican donors and crypto lost. This is Schleifer's assessment of what the result means for Musk's political spending.

Transcript

Big Technology Around 19:19 into the episode
Teddy Schleifer

Yeah. I don't know what to say.

Alex Kantrowitz

…card for big money tonight. Elon Musk lost. Republican donors lost. Crypto lost. Billionaires tax DBD. You also pointed out that Elon Musk had a post on X Tuesday morning, said vote read today. And then that disappeared from his profile. What do you think the impact of this is going to be on Musk?

Teddy Schleifer

Musk spent nearly $500 million. It's the most that anybody's ever spent on an election ever when they were not running. On the midterms themselves. Yeah. Yeah. It's the most everyone's ever spent on an election ever when they were not the candidate themselves. $500 million in the midterms. Probably more, but we'll see. You know, this is a dramatic failure for him. I mean, even though I do think it is true that there's a lot of reasons why, you know, Ken Paxton did not win Texas, for instance. Politics is a binary. It's about, you know, campaigns are a binary. It's about winning versus losing. And his people lost. You know, Republicans lost. So everybody affiliated with the Republican spending operation lost. And, you know, it just happens that Musk did more than anyone else. So it's a tough day to be that the Musk team. I mean, I think they're ultimately going to have to assess what they want to do politically going forward. You know, Musk has basically been saying that he wants to play a big role in 2028. He wants to play, you know, that…

Alex Kantrowitz

I am anticipating the hearing where the Democrats call big balls to testify.

Teddy Schleifer

Yeah.

Alex Kantrowitz

That's not. I think

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

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