campaigned on reining in the acceleration of AI<\/a> and the rapid construction of data centres in the recent midterm elections.<\/p>\nTesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk – who has long invested in AI products – poured cash into Republican campaigns. He spent nearly $450m (\u00a3334m) – more than anyone has ever spent in an election cycle – on backing Republican political candidates.<\/p>\n
This includes millions he spent supporting the losing Republican candidate in the Senate race in Texas, Ken Paxton – the state is home to the corporate headquarters of both SpaceX and Tesla.<\/p>\n
Texas’s new governor-elect, Democrat Gina Hinojosa, has called for a ban on approvals for building new data centres in the state until at least January.<\/p>\n
“Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” Musk wrote on X on Wednesday. Stocks in both SpaceX and Tesla were among those falling on Thursday.<\/p>\n
A former close colleague of Musk’s at Tesla, Peter Bardenfleth-Hansen, says it has “been an expensive couple of days” for his old boss.<\/p>\n
He tells BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “He’s definitely paying the price for again being so closely associated with Trump.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
____
\nhttps:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/live\/cq62yy619r5dt<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86505"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86507,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86505\/revisions\/86507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/Screenshot-2026-11-06-at-6.59.53-AM.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Elon](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/ace\/standard\/640\/cpsprodpb\/vivo\/live\/images\/2026\/11\/6\/d6e73c86-61f2-4f00-8652-8025fbcc6984.jpg.webp\")
<\/span>