Elon Musk’s pullback from politics comes after his last big investment was a flop

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Wisconsin could go down as billionaire Elon Musk’s last big spend on a political campaign.

And it was a flop.

Musk, the richest person in the world, said Tuesday that he would be spending less on political campaigns. The announcement came as Musk is stepping back from his role in the Trump administration, saying he will spend more time focused on his businesses, and just seven weeks after the candidate he backed in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race lost by 10 percentage points.

Democrats in the swing state said Musk’s comments show that a party-led effort in this spring’s election, dubbed “ People vs. Musk, ” succeeded in making Musk and his money “toxic.”

“The people have won,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler. “The biggest funder in Republican politics is taking his toys and going home.”

Brandon Scholz, a retired longtime Republican strategist in the state, said that at least in Wisconsin, “after that court race he deserves to be labeled as toxic.”

But that doesn’t mean Musk couldn’t spend money on races in the state and nationally again, especially if the stakes are high and his money could make a difference, Scholz said.

“Does he bring with him a lot of baggage? Possibly,” Scholz said. “But over time, maybe not as much.”

Musk’s spending in this year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race helped make it the most expensive court race in U.S. history. And it came just five months after Musk spent at least $250 million to help President Donald Trump win, reversing losses in Wisconsin and other battleground states four years earlier.

Musk was all-in on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, even making a personal appearance in Green Bay the weekend before the election wearing a cheesehead hat — popular with fans of the NFL’s Green Bay Packers — and personally handing out checks for $1 million to supporters. It was an extension of Musk’s high-profile role in the presidential race, where he campaigned alongside Trump and headlined some of his own rallies.

“It’s a super big deal,” he told the roughly 2,000-person crowd in the event center, where hundreds of protesters were rallying against his appearance outside. “I’m not phoning it in. I’m here in person.”

But his appearance — and money — didn’t work.

The candidate Musk backed lost Brown County, the home of Green Bay, by 3 percentage points, going on to lose statewide by more than three times that margin.

After the defeat, Musk has said little publicly about the race and his involvement in it. His popularity has also plummeted.

An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs poll taken two weeks after the Wisconsin court election found that just 33% of adults had a favorable view of the Tesla CEO, down from 41% in December.

Musk’s involvement in the race came at the same time he was the chain-saw-wielding face of the Trump administration’s effort to downsize the federal government.

His Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, has enacted deep cuts to the workforce and spending, in some cases seeking to shutter entire agencies, but it has fallen far short of its goals for reducing federal spending.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, of Wisconsin, is one of the most liberal members of Congress and a loud critic of both Trump and Musk.

Pocan is skeptical that Musk truly will back away.

“I don’t believe any of it, first of all,” Pocan said. “This just means they realize how toxic Elon Musk is and the work he did through DOGE.”

Kelda Roys, a Democratic state senator, was also tempered in her excitement over Musk saying he plans to do a “lot less” political spending in the future.

“There’s a ton of other billionaire bros, I’m sure, willing and happy to step up in his place,” Roys said.

Musk could also get involved with future races, but in a much more low-profile way, said Scholz, the Republican.

“In Wisconsin, he had such a huge, huge, huge profile,” Scholz said. “He became the campaign. He became the story.”

Musk spent at least $3 million on the Wisconsin Supreme Court race himself. Musk-backed groups America PAC and a Rebuilding America’s Future spent another $19 million in support of the Republican-backed candidate Brad Schimel. That was part of more than $100 million spent on both sides.

America PAC spent at least $6 million on vendors who sent door-to-door canvassers across the state, according to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. It was a reprise of what the group did last fall across the seven most competitive presidential battleground states, including Wisconsin, which were carried by Trump.

In addition to his political contributions, Musk paid three individual voters $1 million each for signing a petition in an effort to goose turnout. Musk also offered to pay $20 to anyone who signed up on his group’s site to knock on doors for Schimel and posted a photo of themselves as proof. His organization promised $100 to every voter who signed the petition against “activist judges” and another $100 for every signer they referred.

Musk himself hosted Schimel on his podcast and cast what was at stake in stark terms.

“A seemingly small election could determine the fate of Western civilization,” Musk said in a social media post on the April 1 election day. “I think it matters for the future of the world.”

Democrats made the race a referendum on both Musk and Trump’s agenda, successfully electing a judge whose victory ensures the Wisconsin Supreme Court will remain under liberal control until at least 2028.

Coincidentally, Musk’s announcement about spending less on political races came just hours after a liberal judge announced her candidacy for the 2026 Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

Wisconsin Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor is challenging a conservative incumbent justice who sided with Trump in his unsuccessful lawsuit that attempted to overturn his 2020 loss in Wisconsin. The race will be decided in April, months before the midterms in which Democrats hope unease with Trump and Musk will help the party make gains.

Taylor appeared to be taking a similar approach to her campaign that the winning Democratic-backed candidate did this year.

“My campaign is going to be a campaign about the people of this state,” she told The Associated Press, “not about billionaires, not about the most powerful.”

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Associated Press writer Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.