It was a bad night for the oligarchs.

Voters delivered a brutal and historic repudiation to Elon Musk, who spent upward of $450 million of his absurd fortune to purchase elections in Texas and elsewhere – and failed. Having moved his businesses and his residence to the Lone Star state from California, which he disparaged as too liberal, the world’s richest man now faces the prospect of skeptical regulation both there and in Washington.

We might have anticipated a defeat for Musk because he has tried to buy an election before, when he poured millions into a Wisconsin Supreme Court contest in early 2025. He declared then that the fate of Western civilization was at stake – and lost that election to a liberal woman judge by 11 points.

As the stock prices of Tesla and Spacex fell in early morning hours, the blustering mega-billionaire was reduced to wisecracking that data centers really do belong in outer space. The outcome of 41 data center moratorium referenda across the country suggest that isn’t a joke. Musk and his fellow techlords, who spent billions to oppose those ballot initiatives and elect pliable Republicans, got their asses whupped everywhere. Despite all their lavish spending (and lying), the results weren’t close, with majorities well over 60 percent, and as high as 80 percent, supporting restrictions.

In Texas Musk’s spending could do nothing to save the worthless hide of crooked Ken Paxton, beaten soundly by the compassionate but tough seminarian James Talarico. Nor could his millions preserve three-term Gov. Greg Abbott, cast out by Gina Hinojosa, a Latina whose unprecedented victory is a rejection of the misogyny and bigotry that Musk elevates every day, along with his tech supremacy and corrupt approach to politics.

Hinojosa campaigned against Musk’s election-buying, while Talarico delivered a superbly generous election night speech that detoured for a moment to mock the failure of the “trillionaire.”

While the smashing of Musk was surely a thrill for Democrats, he wasn’t the only oligarch who watched his million-dollar donations go up in flames. Among the usual MAGA billionaire suspects who lost big were the Uihlein family of Wisconsin, who joined Musk in losing there last year and dropped $150 million in the midterm. Miriam Adelson, the gambling widow and Likudnik bankroller, torched $67 million. Marc Andreessen and his partner Ben Horowitz, among the more obnoxious tech capitalists, spent $92 million and Jeff Yass, much the same sort, spent $110 million. (Unfortunately they can afford it.)

Next to Texas, the most satisfying smackdown – and one of the most consequential – occurred in formerly red Ohio. The magnificent gubernatorial victory of Democrat Amy Acton was a rejection of Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s sickening ad campaign, to be sure, and of that bent billionaire’s preening ambition. But even more delightful than Vivek's vivisection was the revenge of former and future Sen. Sherrod Brown, whose comeback signaled triumph over the crypto industry (the tech sector that produces nothing useful to anyone except money-laundering criminals).

The crypto gang spent upward of $63 million this year trying to beat back Brown -- who lost his longtime Ohio seat in 2024 largely because of an avalanche of advertising financed by their political action committees. Those same crypto interests spent roughly $176 million on more than 100 midterm races this year, some of it on Democrats. We can hope that Brown and other honest Democrats will insist on sharpened regulation for this “industry” as the new Congress considers legislation still in committee.

Oligarchy won’t go away – its beneficiaries are too rich, too morally depraved and too hostile to democracy to desist. Last night was merely an early battle in a long war. And they lost.