QCLS

Cardone Capital founder and entrepreneur Grant Cardone warned on Tuesday that James Talarico‘s Texas Senate race win over GOP’s Ken Paxton could pose challenges to Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) as Democrats secure key victories in the midterm elections.

Trouble For Elon Musk?

In a post on X, Cardone expressed concern over the Senate elections in Texas between Talarico and former Attorney General Paxton. “If talarico wins Texas it won’t be good for SpaceX or the AI bet 🤖,” he said in the post.

If talarico wins Texas it won’t be good for SpaceX or the AI bet 🤖

— Grant Cardone (@GrantCardone) November 4, 2026

Notably, according to Talarico’s official campaign website, the Texas Democrat has outlined that AI data centers would need to fund their own infrastructure needs, reduce pollution and water consumption.

Talarico has also called for establishing federal standards to protect the power grid and the environment, as well as calling for kicking off an AI dividend.

He said that the dividend would “institute a tax on the AI-attributable profits and use that tax to issue annual dividends to Americans and pay for entrepreneurship grants.” AP News called Talarico the winner of the Senate race in Texas, beating Paxton on Tuesday.

James Talarico Vs. Elon Musk

Musk has delivered sharp criticism of Talarico several times in the run-up to the Texas Senate race, calling the latter a “far left extremist” on one occasion. Talarico, on the other hand, has also voiced his criticism of the Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO, saying that his businesses have been successful due to taxpayer dollars.

Notably, both SpaceX and Tesla are headquartered in Texas, with the commercial spaceflight company establishing the town of Starbase, Texas, which was officially incorporated as a city in May, 2025. SpaceX is also establishing another Starbase in Louisiana.

Musk has also backed Paxton in the Senate race, with the billionaire reportedly donating close to $158 million to political action groups aligned with Paxton in the run-up to the midterm elections.

Gina Hinojosa’s Data Center Moratorium

Besides Talarico, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa, who won the Texas gubernatorial race on Tuesday according to AP News, has been a vocal advocate of an AI data center moratorium.

Investor Brad Gerstner, speaking on the Fireside Podcast on Tuesday, warned that a win for Hinojosa could spark challenges to data center buildouts.

“The big fear is that in a blue tsunami, particularly in the state of Texas, you have Hinojosa, who will issue a moratorium on new data centers, may make it difficult for the existing data centers to get permitted,” he said. Gerstner also called the fears overblown.

He also said that AI stocks recorded about a “5 to 10% reversal in the last two hours on the news” in overseas trading in countries like Japan and South Korea.

Brad Gerstner says AI stocks reversed 5 to 10% overseas on the blue tsunami, with Nvidia down 2% and CoreWeave down 6% after hours, on fears a Hinojosa win in Texas brings a data-center moratorium

"Here’s where my eyes are on. If you look at overseas stocks, so these are… https://t.co/pTMMQEHCAw pic.twitter.com/bSCTfzr9mA

— Fireside Alpha (@firesidealpha) November 4, 2026

Notably, NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) shares were down 2.38% in overnight trading to $201.78, while SPCX shares were down 6.69% to $131.85. CoreWeave Inc. (NASDAQ:CRWV) shares were down 7.35% to $49.79. TSLA shares were down 5.23% to $377.65.

Check out more of Benzinga’s Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.

Photo courtesy: Samuel Boivin / Shutterstock.com