Musk spent $20 million on Wisconsin Supreme Court race he says he 'expected to lose'

Billionaire Elon Musk spent at least $20 million on a high-stakes Wisconsin court race he now says he "expected to lose."

At least that's his morning-after banter.

The Great Lakes swing state election, which was technically nonpartisan, pitted conservative Brad Schimel against liberal Susan Crawford in a race to see who would become the seventh justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court bench. The justices were otherwise split, with three liberals and three conservatives.

An hour or so after polls closed Tuesday, the race was called for Crawford, and Democrats cheered.

Crawford's win came despite Musk going all in for Schimel, including making a pit-stop in Green Bay for a rally Sunday evening. On stage, the world's richest man wore a cheese wedge hat, handed out oversized $1 million checks to two voters and claimed that the race's outcome could affect "the course of Western civilization."

"I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it’s going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will," Musk told a crowd of around 2,000 people.

President Donald Trump had given Schimel his endorsement as well, holding a 10-minute telephone town hall with the conservative candidate a week out from Election Day.

Wednesday morning, hours after Crawford was declared the winner by ten points, Musk said on his social media platform that he was anticipating the outcome.

"I expected to lose, but there is value to losing a piece for a positional gain," he wrote on X.

The contest for Wisconsin's Supreme Court seat surpassed the record for the country's most expensive judicial race. While other deep-pocketed donors, including on the Democrats' side, joined the fray, Musk was, by far, the race's most generous contributor.