Election Spending: A Look at the Final Midterm Money Push

More than $76 million, that's the amount Elon Musk personally gave to his political committee, America PAC, during the first two weeks of October. This funding was provided to help Republican candidates in the final days of the campaign, according to a report the committee filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

The committee spent nearly $43 million in that same two-week period. It also entered the campaign's last stage with about $47 million in cash on hand for further spending.

A significant portion of this money was directed toward the Senate race in Texas. This particular contest received $15.2 million, an amount that is double what the committee spent on it throughout the entire summer. The spending included $12.4 million to criticize Democratic candidate James Talarico and $2.8 million to support Republican Ken Paxton.

Filings since then show another $9.1 million spent against Talarico, bringing the committee's total spending against him for this election cycle to almost $28 million. This figure represents about 40 percent of all spending by the committee in races where it is supporting or opposing candidates. The committee also shifted more of its money to online ads, spending $11.4 million on digital ads in the first two weeks of October, a figure close to what it spent on mail and texting combined.

Overall, Musk has given more than $445 million to Republican political groups for this election cycle, according to an analysis of FEC filings. This makes him the largest known individual donor in the midterms, with over $165 million of that total going to America PAC since July alone. A representative for America PAC declined to comment.

Musk has also been actively discussing the Texas race online. He has several companies, like Tesla and SpaceX, based in Texas. On a recent Wednesday, Musk wrote on his social media platform, X, that “there is something deeply wrong with Talarico,” and also labeled him “a creep.” Earlier in October, he shared a claim about Talarico that was false. Talarico responded to Musk's comments the same day by saying, “There is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator.”

The Texas race is currently considered a toss-up. A poll of 1,000 likely Texas voters conducted from October 17 to 19 found Talarico with 48 percent support and Paxton with 46 percent, which is within the poll's 3-point margin of error.

The consequences of this election cycle extend beyond the Texas contest. If Democrats win the House of Representatives, committee leaders have indicated they will look into Musk's involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the federal contracts held by his companies, and what California Democrat Zoe Lofgren called an “astounding” number of conflicts of interest.

On Friday, several Silicon Valley Democrats also added another issue for potential review: restrictions on SpaceX's Starshield satellite service in Ukraine. In a letter to the White House asking for an investigation, Representatives Sam Liccardo, Jimmy Panetta, and Ro Khanna said the next Congress “will closely scrutinize federal funding awarded to Mr. Musk’s businesses.”