By SCOTT BAUER
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.”
