Elon Musk Pours $76 Million Into America PAC Ahead of Midterms
The tech billionaire's political group injected tens of millions of dollars into the Texas Senate race just days before voters head to the polls.
By Camila Rodriguez ·
Elon Musk’s personal political committee, America PAC, received more than $76 million in cash during the first half of October. This massive infusion aims to boost Republican candidates in the final stretch of the midterm elections, according to a pre-election report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday evening. The group reported spending nearly $43 million in that same two-week period. As it enters the last leg of the campaign, the PAC is holding nearly $47 million in liquid funds.
The Texas Senate contest absorbed the largest share of this new spending. The race drew $15.2 million, which is double the amount the PAC spent there over the summer. Of that total, $12.4 million went toward attacking Democratic candidate James Talarico, while $2.8 million promoted Republican Ken Paxton. Daily filings released since that initial report show an additional $9.1 million spent against Talarico. This brings the PAC’s total spending against him this cycle to nearly $28 million. That figure represents about 40 percent of everything the group has spent supporting or opposing candidates.
The group has also shifted its advertising strategy toward digital platforms. It spent $11.4 million on online ads in the first two weeks of October. This amount is close to what the PAC spent on mail and texting combined. All told, Musk has given more than $445 million to Republican political groups this election cycle, according to an analysis of FEC filings. This makes him the biggest known individual donor in the midterms. More than $165 million of that total has gone to America PAC since July alone. The group declined to comment on the new figures.
Musk, who has several companies including Tesla and SpaceX based in Texas, has been vocal about the race online. On Wednesday, he posted on X that there is something deeply wrong with Talarico. He later called the Democrat a creep and claimed without evidence that Talarico would vote to take away your kids and transition them. Earlier this month, Musk amplified a false claim that Talarico had been treated at a mental health facility. Talarico responded the same day, stating that there is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator.
The race remains competitive. An 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. That margin is within the poll’s three-point margin of error. The stakes for Musk reach well beyond the Texas Senate. If Democrats win the House, lawmakers in line to lead committees have signaled they will investigate his role in the Department of Government Efficiency. They also plan to examine his companies’ federal contracts and what California Democrat Zoe Lofgren called an astounding number of conflicts of interest.
Unified Democratic control of Congress would pose even more problems for him. Silicon Valley Democrats added another target on Friday by calling for restrictions on SpaceX’s Starshield satellite service in Ukraine. In a letter to the White House demanding an investigation, Representatives Sam Liccardo, Jimmy Panetta, and Ro Khanna vowed that the next Congress will closely scrutinize federal funding awarded to Mr. Musk’s businesses.
Source: Wired
