Musk Floods Midterm Races With Cash

Elon Musk has significantly increased his financial backing for Republican candidates in the final days before the midterms. A report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday evening reveals that his personal political committee, America PAC, received more than seventy-six million dollars in the first two weeks of October. This substantial infusion of funds aims to bolster the GOP in the closing stretch of the election.

The group put that money to work quickly. It spent nearly forty-three million dollars during that same two-week period. As the campaign enters its final leg, the committee retains almost forty-seven million dollars in cash on hand. The Texas Senate race was the primary focus of this new spending. It attracted fifteen point two million dollars, which is double the amount the PAC spent in that state during the entire summer.

The allocation in Texas was heavily weighted toward negative advertising. Twelve point four million dollars went to attacks on Democratic candidate James Talarico, while two point eight million dollars supported Republican Ken Paxton. Daily filings since the initial report indicate that another nine point one million dollars has been spent against Talarico. This brings the total cycle spending against him to nearly twenty-eight million dollars, accounting for about forty percent of all money the PAC has spent on candidates.

The committee also shifted its strategy toward digital platforms. It spent eleven point four million dollars on online ads in the two-week window, a figure close to its combined spending on mail and text messages. Musk’s total contribution to Republican political groups this cycle now exceeds four hundred and forty-five million dollars, making him the largest known individual donor. Over one hundred and sixty-five million dollars of that sum went to America PAC since July. The PAC declined to comment on the filings.

Musk, whose companies Tesla and SpaceX are based in Texas, has also engaged in the race online. On Wednesday, he posted on X that there is something deeply wrong with Talarico, labeling him a creep and claiming without evidence that he would vote to take away children to transition them. He also amplified a false claim earlier this month that Talarico had been treated at a mental health facility. Talarico responded by stating that a political system allowing one trillionaire to buy his own personal senator is deeply flawed.

Despite the heavy spending, the Texas race remains a toss-up. An Emerson College poll of one thousand likely voters, conducted between October 17 and 19, found Talarico leading by two points at forty-eight percent versus forty-six percent for Paxton. This margin falls within the poll’s three-point margin of error. The outcome in Texas is just one piece of a larger puzzle for Musk.

The stakes extend well beyond the Senate race. If Democrats win the House, leaders in line for committee chairs have signaled plans to investigate Musk’s role in the Department of Government Efficiency. They also intend to look into his companies’ federal contracts and what California Democrat Zoe Lofgren described as an astounding number of conflicts of interest. Unified Democratic control of Congress would pose even greater challenges for him.

Silicon Valley Democrats have added another target to their list. On Friday, Representatives Sam Liccardo, Jimmy Panetta, and Ro Khanna wrote to the White House demanding an investigation into restrictions on SpaceX’s Starshield satellite service in Ukraine. They vowed that the next Congress will closely scrutinize federal funding awarded to Musk’s businesses. What happens next depends on the November votes and the subsequent legislative agenda.