Musk Pumps $76 Million Into GOP Campaigns, Targeting Texas Senate Race

Elon Musk personally contributed more than $76 million to his political committee, America PAC, during the first two weeks of October. The infusion of cash was made to support Republican candidates in the final stretch of the midterm elections. This funding was detailed in a pre-election report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday evening.

America PAC reported spending nearly $43 million in that same two-week period. As the campaign entered its final stages, the committee reported holding nearly $47 million in cash on hand. A significant portion of the new spending was directed toward the Texas Senate race, which received $15.2 million. This amount is double the total the PAC had spent on the contest throughout the entire summer.

Of that sum, $12.4 million was allocated to attack Democratic candidate James Talarico, while $2.8 million was used to promote his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton. Filings since the pre-election report show an additional $9.1 million has been spent against Talarico. This brings the PAC’s total spending against him this cycle to nearly $28 million, a figure that represents approximately 40 percent of the committee's total expenditures on supporting or opposing candidates.

The committee also shifted its strategy toward digital media, allocating $11.4 million to online advertisements over the two-week period. This amount is comparable to what it spent on mail and texting combined. In total, Musk has donated over $445 million to Republican political groups for this election cycle, making him the largest known individual donor in the midterms. More than $165 million of that sum has been given to America PAC since July alone.

Musk, whose companies Tesla and SpaceX are based in Texas, has also used his social media platform, X, to comment on the race. On Wednesday, he wrote that “there is something deeply wrong with Talarico,” then labeled him “a creep.” He also made an unsubstantiated claim that Talarico “would vote to take away your kids and transition them.” Earlier in the month, Musk amplified a claim, which was false, that Talarico had been treated at a mental health facility.

Talarico responded to the attacks the same day. “There is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator,” he stated. The Texas Senate race itself remains a toss-up. A recent Emerson College poll of 1,000 likely Texas voters, conducted from October 17 to 19, found Talarico at 48 percent and Paxton at 46 percent, a difference that falls within the poll's 3-point margin of error.

Musk’s influence and potential conflicts of interest are also drawing scrutiny from lawmakers. If Democrats win control of the House, committee leaders have signaled they will investigate his role in the Department of Government Efficiency, his companies' federal contracts, and what California Democrat Zoe Lofgren described as an “astounding” number of conflicts of interest.

The issue may extend to a new area of concern. On Friday, three California Democrats—Representatives Sam Liccardo, Jimmy Panetta, and Ro Khanna—sent a letter to the White House demanding an investigation into restrictions on SpaceX’s Starshield satellite service in Ukraine. The representatives also vowed that the next Congress “will closely scrutinize federal funding awarded to Mr. Musk’s businesses.”