Billionaire Elon Musk appears to be deleting his social media posts urging Americans to vote Republican after the party suffered major losses in the US midterm elections.
One of the deleted posts was a pinned message from October 29, in which Musk had asked Americans to vote for Republican senators.
He removed it early Wednesday, around the time Democrat James Talarico claimed victory in the Texas Senate race. His victory meant a defeat for Republican Ken Paxton, who had received strong support from Musk. The deletions were also noticed by users on X.
One of the deleted posts was a pinned message from October 29, in which Musk had asked Americans to vote for Republican senators.
When one user asked whether Musk was removing his election-related posts, his AI chatbot Grok replied, “True”. Grok said Musk had removed his “Vote red today!” post after the results showed “major Republican losses”.
On Wednesday morning, however, he shared several posts analysing the election results. This came shortly after he posted, “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now. He increased his spending in the second half of the campaign to help Republicans retain control of Congress. Some of his biggest contributions went to the Texas Senate race, the Senate Leadership Fund, a major Republican super PAC, and key House races in New York, New Jersey and Iowa. The election setback also came as Musk’s fortune took a hit. Investors were concerned that a new Democratic Congress could slow down regulations and approvals for data centre construction. Much of Musk’s wealth comes from his stakes in these companies.
Musk’s posts come after he spent at least $458 million or Rs 4,400 crore backing Republican candidates and conservative groups during the midterm election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission filings. His net worth was estimated at $878 billion on Wednesday. However, he lost $23.7 billion as shares of his companies, Tesla and SpaceX, fell. The Financial Times estimated that he is now around $30 billion poorer.
Later, he sarcastically wrote, “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time”.
Musk had made very few direct comments about the midterm elections on Tuesday. His appeal to vote Republican was among several posts promoting Grok.
