Musk Pours $76 Million Into GOP Midterm Bid
New FEC filings reveal a massive surge in spending by America PAC, with Texas serving as the primary target for attacks against Democratic challenger James Talarico.
By Andre Williams ·
Elon Musk has injected more than $76 million into the race for Congress over the last two weeks. This fresh influx of cash aims to help Republican candidates win their seats in the upcoming midterms. The money went to America PAC, Musk’s personal political committee. A pre-election report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday evening confirmed the details of this final push.
The committee spent nearly $43 million during that specific two-week window. They still have almost $47 million in cash left for the final days of the campaign. The Texas Senate race received the largest share of the new spending. It drew $15.2 million, which is double what the PAC spent in that state all summer. Of that total, $12.4 million went to attack Democratic candidate James Talarico. Another $2.8 million promoted Republican Ken Paxton.
Daily filings show an additional $9.1 million spent against Talarico since then. This brings total spending against him to nearly $28 million. That figure represents about 40 percent of everything the PAC has spent supporting or opposing candidates this cycle. The group also shifted its focus toward online advertising. It spent $11.4 million on digital ads in the same period. That amount is close to what it spent on mail and texting combined.
Musk has donated more than $445 million to Republican political groups in this election cycle. An analysis of FEC filings by Wired makes him the biggest known individual donor in the midterms. More than $165 million of that total has gone to America PAC since July. The group declined to comment on the new reports. Musk, who has companies like Tesla and SpaceX based in Texas, has been vocal about the race online.
On Wednesday, Musk posted on X that there is something deeply wrong with Talarico. He called the candidate a creep and claimed without evidence that he would vote to take away your kids and transition them. Earlier in the month, Musk amplified a false claim that Talarico had been treated at a mental health facility. Talarico responded quickly. He said there is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator.
The Texas race remains a toss-up. An Emerson College poll of 1,000 likely voters conducted from October 17 to 19 found Talarico at 48 percent. Paxton trailed at 46 percent. The difference is within the poll's three-point margin of error. The stakes for Musk extend well beyond that single seat. If Democrats win the House, leaders have signaled they will investigate his role in the Department of Government Efficiency. They also plan to look into his companies' federal contracts and a number of conflicts of interest described as astounding by California Democrat Zoe Lofgren.
Silicon Valley Democrats added another target on Friday. They sent a letter to the White House demanding an investigation into restrictions on SpaceX's Starshield satellite service in Ukraine. Representatives Sam Liccardo, Jimmy Panetta, and Ro Khanna vowed that the next Congress will closely scrutinize federal funding awarded to Mr. Musk's businesses. Unified Democratic control of Congress would pose even more problems for him.
Source: Wired
