Elon Musk spent Election Day reposting calls to vote Republican, went quiet for nine hours while the results came in, and returned after 10 p.m. Pacific with jokes about the losses and a run of posts promoting Grok Bot. This edition covers 7:13 a.m. PST Tuesday, Nov. 3, to 7:13 a.m. PST Wednesday, Nov. 4. It quotes his posts with a link to each, follows Jacob and Isaac’s topic order (last confirmed Oct. 28; the desk found no newer episode to check against), and pairs claims with other sources where the desk found them. The desk found no new interview or public appearance by Musk in the window; clips he shared come from older interviews. Video follows at the end.

Highlights. After the Democratic sweep he joked that his “election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time” () and that “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now” (). He promoted Grok Bot as “like hiring a super competent employee” () and urged users to let it make phone calls and shop (; ). And he praised Qualcomm as SpaceX named it a partner for Starlink Mobile ().

Topic by topic

1. SpaceX and Starlink. Quoting Qualcomm chief executive Cristiano Amon, who wrote that “SpaceX selected Qualcomm Dragonwing to accelerate @Starlink Mobile’s nationwide terrestrial 5G network,” Musk replied, “Qualcomm’s technology is excellent” (; ). Over Starlink’s own post that its 5G base stations “will leverage @Qualcomm chips to accelerate deployment, starting in 2027,” he added, “At last there will be one network with good signal everywhere!” (), and he reposted SpaceX’s Michael Nicolls: “Excited to build Starlink Mobile with @Qualcomm !” (). CNBC calls it a multiyear deal and says Qualcomm described it as its “largest 5G initiative to date” (CNBC; The Verge). He also wrote “Free new dish for all early Starlink customers” over Sawyer Merritt’s post on free Standard kits for first-generation users (); PCMag notes that the old dish shuts off once the new one comes online “or 14 days after delivery, whichever comes first” (PCMag; TeslaNorth). Earlier he wrote “Starlink grows customers for airlines” over @cb_doge’s claim that Starlink helped ZIPAIR “grow passenger revenue 12.3% YoY” () and reposted a claim that Starlink Wi-Fi now runs on 50% of United’s daily flights (); the desk did not check either airline figure.

2. Tesla. His one Tesla item: a repost of Tesla’s “POV you’re a flying car” video ().

3. X. He reposted @TheCaptainEli’s claim that “Today X is the #1 news app in 167 countries” on Election Day (); the desk found no independent ranking to confirm it. Overnight he answered X’s Nikita Bier’s “does anyone remember how to code” thread with “😂” ().

4. Boring Company and Neuralink. The desk found no posts on either company in the window.

5. AI compute. He reposted SemiAnalysis’s “Elon Is Doing It Again: SpaceX Will Be The World’s Biggest AI Cloud” (); the newsletter reports “3.6GW under construction across multiple sites” and says “SpaceX has even revised its estimate up to ~13GW in 2027” (SemiAnalysis). Over a clip from an earlier Dwarkesh Patel interview in which he argues that chip output will outrun electricity, he listed further bottlenecks: “And electrical equipment, cooling, networking and batteries” (; ), about 4.8 million views. His “Data centers in space” post came as Democrat Gina Hinojosa, who, per Forbes, “has proposed a moratorium on new data-center construction,” won the Texas governor’s race (; Forbes).

6. Grok Bot. He quote-posted Peter Diamandis (“GrokBot is AWESOME. Actually addicting.”) with “Grok @Bot is like hiring a super competent employee. Treat Bot like you would a colleague.” (). He wrote “Try asking Grok @Bot to make calls!” over Sawyer Merritt’s demo with call audio (), “Grok @Bot can research which doctors are the best in your area, call them by phone and make an appointment!” over a parent’s account of a same-day pediatric booking (; ), and “Grok @Bot can do complex trips” over a user who booked family flights (). He reposted Peter Yang’s Comcast call, in which the bot said “I don’t actually have eyes on the sky” (), and a pizza order whose bot opened with “I’m a virtual assistant calling for Teslaconomics on a recorded line” (). Teslarati reports that Grok Bot’s terms require each call to identify itself as a virtual assistant, that calling “currently works only with US numbers,” and that one rep “refused to cancel a subscription once it was clear an AI was on the phone” (Teslarati). On shopping, he wrote “Grok @Bot shopping is great” over the official @bot launch video (; ) and “Grok @Bot will research purchase ideas, bring back a selection, order them, track the purchases and return anything you don’t want” (), and reposted @emersonsays on the shopping feature: “Designed and built it in 1 week, shipped it in 2” (). He also reposted @SMB_Attorney’s clip of a SpaceXSI ad about using Grok Bot to buy a local home-services business ().

7. U.S. politics. Election Day morning brought about 15 political reposts: get-out-the-vote posts (“GO OUT AND VOTE‼️” from Rob Schneider, ), two @GuntherEagleman posts backing Paxton (; ), Trump’s Truth Social endorsement of Paxton as crossposted to X (), @BlackLabelAdvsr’s “RED WAVE incoming!” () and a Kalshi market showing Abbott at 66% (). He quote-posted @america’s clip of Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed with “🤨” (), about 8.1 million views, and reposted Ashley Rindsberg’s thread saying that one Wikipedia editor shaped El-Sayed’s entry (). After the results he reposted a Grok reply saying the outcome could bring “renewed congressional investigations and lawfare that could slow SpaceX projects including orbital data centers” (), two @EndWokeness posts of NBC exit-poll splits by race and sex in Texas and Georgia (; ), and wrote “Interesting” over @AF_Graphs’ claim that “The Iran war was a massive losing issue” (). At 7:11 a.m. Wednesday he replied “Voter ID failed in California” to a post about voters backing GOP policies while electing Democrats (); the desk did not confirm a California voter ID result.

8. Europe and the world. He reposted @cb_doge’s report that Norway “secures @Starlink access for its military, police and security agencies” in a deal “worth up to NOK 450 million” (); NordicDefenceWatch reports that the framework agreement “could be worth up to NOK 450m” and “requires access to Starlink” (NordicDefenceWatch).

9. Media. Coverage of his night centered on the lasers joke. Axios wrote that “No one has ever spent as much as Musk for so little payoff,” and Forbes paired the joke with LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman’s charge that Musk spent “outrageous amounts to keep authoritarian clowns in power” (Axios; Forbes).

10. Culture and jokes. Correcting @EvaFox’s retelling of his 1989 arrival in Canada, he wrote, “Actually, I had ~$2500, which was the amount left over after buying a ticket to Montreal from South Africa” (). He called a Tolkien passage “Prophetic” (), about 5 million views; wrote “Quest to understand the Universe” over an old TED clip of himself (); and answered Naval Ravikant’s “Greed can be satisfied. Envy, cannot.” with “True” (). At 6:37 a.m. Wednesday he replied to his own lasers post with an image of a vintage TV test card reading “Sorry! WE ARE EXPERIENCING TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES” ().

Deep dive: the lasers joke and the money behind it

Musk spent the morning of Nov. 3 amplifying Republican turnout messages, several of them for Paxton in Texas. Results went the other way. UPI reports that Democrats won both chambers, leading 54-44 in the Senate with two seats still counting, and that Trump “conceded the defeat” (UPI). Ballotpedia reports that Talarico “is the first Democrat to win an election statewide in Texas since 1994” (Ballotpedia), and Forbes reports that Hinojosa went on to defeat Gov. Greg Abbott (Forbes).

Musk’s first posts after the polls closed made light of the result. Axios timed the lasers post to “just before 1:15am ET” and called him “the largest individual donor in modern history” (Axios). The totals differ by outlet: an estimated $445 million per Axios and $458 million per Forbes, which cites its own “analysis of FEC filings and other reporting” (Forbes). The desk did not total the filings itself.

Forbes collected other billionaires’ reactions. Hoffman, a Democratic megadonor, called the night an “overwhelming wave against Trump and his cronies,” per Forbes. Investor Jason Calacanis wrote, “I never expected Texas to turn blue,” and Chamath Palihapitiya warned on the All-In livestream that “the only way to sink the AI trade is to sink the data centers” (Forbes). Musk’s own late posts pointed in two directions: a reposted Grok summary warning of investigations into his companies (), and a nod to exit polls that ranked the Iran war as a losing issue for Republicans (). Axios notes that it remains “unclear how the massive power shift in Texas will affect Musk’s ambitions for his companies in the state” (Axios).