Musk Becomes the Midterms' Biggest Known Donor: Over $276 Million Since July, About $366 Million This Election Cycle
NEW YORK — With about three weeks to go before the November 3 midterm elections, tech billionaire Elon Musk has quietly become the biggest known individual donor of the cycle. First reported by The New York Times and confirmed in follow-up reporting by the Associated Press and Reuters on October 12, Musk has put more than $276 million into Republican groups and his own super PAC since July, in an effort to help Republicans keep their House and Senate majorities. His total for the 2025–26 election cycle, which began on January 1, 2025, stands at roughly $366 million — more than the roughly $290 million he spent in the 2024 cycle. The figures were confirmed to the Times by Andrew Romeo, a spokesperson for Musk's super PAC, America PAC, ahead of this week's federal filing deadline, when third-quarter disclosures become public.
The breakdown of the $276 million has been reported in detail: $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC for Republican Senate candidates — one of the largest single known political donations in U.S. history, and more than the $151 million its Democratic counterpart, Senate Majority PAC, raised in the same quarter; more than $76 million to America PAC, the super PAC Musk founded; $20 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund for House Republicans; $10 million to the Lone Star Liberty PAC backing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's Senate bid; $10 million to the Republican Governors Association; and $2 million to the Republican Attorneys General Association. The Times also reported that Musk has given additional money through groups that do not disclose their donors, so his actual total is higher than the known figure.
America PAC has rebuilt the large-scale turnout operation it ran to help elect President Donald Trump in 2024. It is focused on seven competitive Senate races and nearly three dozen House contests, targeting conservative voters who typically skip midterms; it deployed nearly 3,000 paid canvassers during the week of October 5 and reports knocking on about 6.5 million doors nationwide.
The spending marks a turnaround from last May, when Musk said he intended to do much less political spending in the future, remarking that he had "done enough." He later fell out with Trump while leaving his post running the Department of Government Efficiency, but the two have since reconciled, and Trump presented Musk with the National Medal of Science last week. Democrats responded that Republicans are hoping vast sums of cash can mask unpopular candidates and an unpopular economy, while Republicans said the investments give their candidates a fighting chance to get their message out in the final stretch.
Source: Compiled from The New York Times' original report and Associated Press and Reuters reporting on October 12.
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Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：埃隆·马斯克在公开活动上。摄影：Gage Skidmore，CC BY-SA 3.0，来源：Wikimedia Commons
