埃隆·马斯克在中期选举中投入数百万美元助选共和党，但这位科技大亨的巨额财富在周二晚间遭遇的“蓝色浪潮”面前毫无招架之力。
Elon Musk poured millions of dollars into boosting Republicans in the midterm elections, but the tech mogul’s vast wealth was no match for the blue wave that battered the GOP on Tuesday night.
尽管本轮选举周期支出超过4.42亿美元——这一巨额资金甚至超过了他对特朗普总统2024年大选的支持力度——共和党仍在全国范围内失去阵地，甚至在被视为相对安全的党内大本营也不例外。
Despite spending more than $442 million this cycle — a massive sum that eclipsed his support for President Trump in the 2024 election — Republicans lost ground across the country, even in territory considered relatively safe for the party.
共和党的惨败凸显了世界首富在重塑政治版图方面的局限性，并引发了关于他的商业帝国将在德克萨斯州这一大本营以及国会山的民主党领导人治下表现如何的疑问。
The GOP’s drubbing underscored the limits of the world’s richest man in shaping the political map and raises questions about how his business empire will fare under Democratic leaders in his home base of Texas and on Capitol Hill.
“除了共和党，埃隆·马斯克恐怕是上周二最大的输家，”专注于政治竞选研究的弗吉尼亚理工大学公共关系学教授凯斯·迈尔斯表示。
“Other than the Republicans, Elon Musk is probably the biggest loser of last Tuesday,” said Cayce Myers, a Virginia Tech public relations professor who has focused on political campaigns.
马斯克在2024年总统大选中投入数亿美元，成为特朗普第二任期的重要人物，甚至主导了导致联邦政府大规模削减开支和裁员的降本行动。但在去年向一场威斯康星州竞选倾注数百万美元却未见成效后，马斯克曾表示将削减政治支出。
Musk pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into the 2024 presidential race and became a major figure in Trump’s second term, even leading the cost-saving crackdown that led to sweeping cuts and layoffs in the federal government. But after pouring millions into a Wisconsin race that didn’t pay off last year, Musk said he’d scale back political spending.
这一承诺没能坚持多久，马斯克于2025年底启动中期选举捐款。到选举日，他已遥遥领先成为最大捐赠者。
That pledge didn’t hold for long, and Musk started midterm spending in late 2025. By Election Day, he was the top donor by a mile.
“要想有竞争力，资金必不可少，毫无疑问，”迈尔斯补充道，“但资金无法保证结果。”
“You have to have money to be competitive. No question,” Myers added. “But money cannot guarantee outcome.”
总部位于德克萨斯州的共和党策略师、安全人工智能联盟首席执行官布伦登·斯坦豪泽表示，“当选民已下定决心时，天量资金也无法动摇他们。”他还指出，马斯克的支出在动员选民为特朗普投票方面的影响力“被高估了”，并称“资金在政治中的边际效应递减。”这位亿万富翁周二的政治失利在其家乡德克萨斯州表现得最为惨烈，马斯克在那里至少投入1.68亿美元助选陷入困境的共和党参议员候选人肯·帕克斯顿。
Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas-based Republican strategist and CEO of the Alliance for Secure AI, said “all of the money in the world cannot move voters when they have their minds made up.”He also suggested the impact of Musk’s spending in getting voters to turn out for Trump in 2024 was “overstated,” noting that “money has diminishing returns in politics.”The billionaire’s political losses Tuesday were starkest in his home state of Texas, where Musk spent at least $168 million boosting embattled Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton.
帕克斯顿在得克萨斯州参议院选举中败给民主党人詹姆斯·塔拉里科——民主党还翻盘了半打以上的其他州级职位，包括州长和总检察长职务，使得该州最高职位在数十年来首次由民主党掌控。
Paxton fell to Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race — and Democrats flipped more than a half dozen other statewide roles, including the governor’s office and the attorney general post, turning the state’s top roles blue for the first time in decades.
根据AdImpact在选举日前夕的数据，得克萨斯州参议院选举成为有史以来最昂贵的非总统竞选，帕克斯顿与塔拉里科之争的支出接近5.75亿美元。在大选冲刺阶段，支持帕克斯顿的捐款人花费的钱是支持塔拉里科阵营的两倍多，其中获得了马斯克的大力支持。
The Texas Senate became the most expensive nonpresidential race on record, according to AdImpact data just before Election Day, with nearly $575 million spent on the Paxton-Talarico fight. In the general election stretch, pro-Paxton donors spent more than double the money that was spent by the pro-Talarico camp, with a major boost from Musk.
根据竞选财务记录，马斯克还向得克萨斯州州长格雷格·阿博特（共和党）的连任竞选捐赠了500万美元，结果阿博特却败给了民主党人吉娜·希诺霍萨——她是一名州立法者，曾承诺暂停数据中心扩张，并在上周获得了一项法院命令，要求查阅阿办公室与马斯克之间的电子邮件。
Musk also gave $5 million to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) reelection bid, according to campaign finance records, only for Abbott to lose to Democrat Gina Hinojosa — a state lawmaker who pledged to put a pause on data center expansion and won a court order last week seeking access to emails between Abbott’s office and Musk.
与此同时，帕克斯顿将由民主党人内森·约翰逊接任该州最高检察官。约翰逊在竞选期间承诺，将调查马斯克的星链和太空探索技术公司的拨款。
Meanwhile, Paxton will be replaced as the state’s top prosecutor by Democrat Nathan Johnson, who promised on the campaign trail to investigate grants to Musk’s Starlink and SpaceX.
民主党还打破了共和党对得克萨斯州议会的三权掌控，翻盘了众议院。
Democrats also broke into the GOP’s trifecta control over the Texas state Legislature, flipping the House.
“他哪怕一分钱都不花，大概也会看到同样的结果，”斯坦豪瑟说。“这是一场历史性规模的全国性选举浪潮。”
“He could have spent $0 and probably seen the same result,” Steinhauser said. “This was a national wave election of historic proportions.”
“没人真正做好准备，迎接如此巨大的浪潮，”他继续说。“他哪怕一分钱都不花。他可以在得克萨斯州和全国各地花掉4.5亿美元，结果大概也不会有太大改变。”得克萨斯州各地意外的政权更迭，引发了关于马斯克地位的新疑问。马斯克从加利福尼亚州逃到得克萨斯州，以逃避左翼政治和监管机构。
“Nobody was really prepared for it to be this big,” he continued. “He could have spent $0. He could have spent $450 million in Texas and across the country, and it probably wouldn’t have moved the needle very much.”The unexpected changing of the guard throughout Texas raises new questions about Musk’s standing. Musk fled from California to Texas to escape left-wing politics and regulators.
“对埃隆来说，账目对不上，”圣安东尼奥德克萨斯大学政治学教授乔恩·泰勒说。“这一切都是为了让德克萨斯州保持红色，但他基本上是白花钱吗？” “我认为马斯克需要担心的是，德克萨斯州的监管结构即将发生变化，新的总检察长将对特朗普政府和埃隆·马斯克采取强硬态度，”泰勒说。
“For Elon, the math ain’t mathing,” said Jon Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. “All this to try to keep Texas red, but did he spend it essentially for nothing?”“The thing that Musk, I think, needs to be worried about is that regulatory structure of the state of Texas is about to change, with an attorney general who’s going to be aggressive against the Trump administration and against Elon Musk,” Taylor said.
马斯克本人似乎也是这样解读结果的。“看来我的选举干预空间激光器这次没起作用，”马斯克在社交平台X上写道，该平台由他所有。
Musk himself seemed to read the results that way. “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time,” Musk wrote on the social platform X, which he owns.
“太空数据中心现在看起来相当有吸引力，”他在另一条帖子中说，似乎是在提及SpaceX近期推进轨道数据中心的努力。
“Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” he said in another post, seemingly referencing SpaceX’s recent push to develop orbital data centers.
随着民主党在国会山掌权，马斯克及其公司预计还将成为德克萨斯州以外的目标。
Musk and his companies are also expected to be targets beyond Texas as Democrats take control on Capitol Hill.
特拉华州民主党参议员克里斯·库恩斯上周在X上暗示，他将调查马斯克与俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京的关系，此前普京称这位科技大亨为“真正的天才”。弗吉尼亚州民主党众议员詹姆斯·沃金肖发帖称，马斯克“必须为”政府效率部所经历的削减和解雇行为负责。其他人则表示，他们将调查其公司数十亿美元的政府合同。
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) suggested on X last week that he’d investigate Musk’s links to Russian President Vladimir Putin, after Putin touted the tech mogul as a “real genius.”Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-Va.) posted that Musk “must answer” for the cuts and firings undergone by the Department of Government Efficiency. Others have signaled they’ll probe his companies’ multibillion-dollar government contracts.
CNBC报道，在中期选举后的两天里，特斯拉和SpaceX的股票合计市值蒸发了数百亿美元，投资者担心在民主党领导下，这位亿万富翁的公司将面临新的障碍。
Stocks in Tesla and SpaceX fell by hundreds of billions of dollars in combined market value in the two days after the midterms amid investor concerns about new hurdles for the billionaire’s companies under Democratic leadership, CNBC reported.
但斯坦豪瑟对民主党会对马斯克本人采取多强硬的行动持怀疑态度。
But Steinhauser was skeptical about how hard Democrats will go after Musk himself.
“我认为民主党会谨慎，避免过度，”他说。“关于调查之类的问题会有一些……但我不认为他们计划像有些人可能预期的那样，单纯地针对他本人。”得克萨斯州共和党顾问文尼·明奇洛认为，“得克萨斯州的事就是生意”，无论哪个党执政。
“I think the Democrats will be careful about overreach,” he said. “There will be some questions about investigations and things like that … but I don’t think they’re planning to just go after him personally in the way that maybe some might expect.”Texas-based Republican consultant Vinny Minchillo argued that “the business of Texas is business,” regardless of the party in power.
“一方面，听着，他花了很多钱支持共和党人，但另一方面，他在奥斯汀有一家巨大的工厂，雇佣了很多人，为经济注入了大量资金，星舰项目也是如此，”明奇洛谈到马斯克时说。
“On one hand, listen, he spent a lot of money to support the Republicans, but on the other hand he’s got a gigantic plant in Austin that employs a lot of people, puts a lot of money into the economy, and the SpaceX project does the same,” Minchillo said of Musk.
“这里曾有议论：民主党会不会以某种方式针对埃隆·马斯克？我希望他们比这更聪明。”民主党可能会瞄准马斯克和其他亿万富翁在选举中花费巨资的能力。
“There was talk here that: Are the Democrats going to go after Elon Musk somehow? I’m hoping they’re smarter than that.”Democrats might take aim at Musk and other billionaires’ ability to spend so much on elections.
塔拉里科就曾指责马斯克试图“买下他自己的美国参议员”，并在选举后呼吁竞选资金改革。
Talarico, for one, has accused Musk of trying to “buy his own personal U.S. senator” and called after the election for campaign finance reform.
“有人不应该能在政治上花那么多钱，我希望看到能防止这种情况发生的改革，”卢克·沃福德说，他是龙舌兰民主基础设施基金的创始合伙人。
“Somebody should not be able to spend that much money in politics, and I hope that we see reform that prevents that from happening,” said Luke Warford, a founding partner at the Agave Democratic Infrastructure Fund.
与此同时，沃福德预测，随着新一批民主党人掌权，马斯克的商业帝国将继续在孤星州发挥重要作用。
At the same time, Warford forecast that Musk’s business empire will remain a major player in the Lone Star State as the new crop of Democrats takes power.
“伊隆是一个为该州带来大量创新的人，”他说，“所以，看看事情会如何发展，将会非常有趣。”
“Elon is a person who brings a lot of innovation to the state,” he said, “and so I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how it plays out.”