Elon Musk Just Dumped Another $76 Million Into the Midterms

Elon Musk gave his idiosyncratic governmental committee, America PAC, much than $76 cardinal successful the archetypal 2 weeks of October to boost Republicans successful the last agelong of the midterms, according to a pre-election study the PAC filed Thursday evening with the Federal Election Commission.

The radical spent astir $43 cardinal successful the archetypal 2 weeks of October, and entered the campaign’s past limb holding astir $47 cardinal successful cash.

The Texas Senate contention dominated the caller spending. It drew $15.2 million, treble what the PAC spent determination each summer. That spending included $12.4 cardinal to onslaught Democratic campaigner James Talarico and $2.8 cardinal to beforehand Republican Ken Paxton.

Daily filings since past amusement $9.1 cardinal much against Talarico, bringing the PAC’s spending against him this rhythm to astir $28 million, astir 40 percent of everything it has spent supporting oregon opposing candidates. The PAC besides shifted toward online ads, spending $11.4 cardinal connected integer ads successful the aforesaid 2 weeks, which is adjacent to what it spent connected message and texting combined.

All told, Musk has fixed much than $445 cardinal to Republican governmental groups this predetermination cycle, according to WIRED’s investigation of FEC filings, making him the biggest known idiosyncratic donor successful the midterms. More than $165 cardinal of that has gone to America PAC since July alone.

America PAC declined to comment.

Musk—who has respective companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, based successful Texas—has besides been posting online astir the race. On Wednesday, Musk posted connected X that “there is thing profoundly incorrect with Talarico,” past called him “a creep” and claimed, without evidence, that helium “would ballot to instrumentality distant your kids and modulation them.” Earlier this month, Musk amplified a mendacious claim that Talarico had been treated astatine a intelligence wellness facility. Talarico shot back the aforesaid day: “There is thing profoundly incorrect with a governmental strategy that allows 1 trillionaire to bargain his ain idiosyncratic US Senator.”

The Texas contention remains a toss-up. An Emerson College poll of 1,000 apt Texas voters, conducted October 17 to 19, recovered Talarico astatine 48 percent and Paxton astatine 46 percent, wrong the poll’s 3-point borderline of error.

The stakes for Musk scope good beyond Texas. If Democrats triumph the House, the lawmakers successful enactment to pb its committees person signaled they volition analyse his relation successful the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), his companies’ national contracts, and what Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, called an “astounding” number of conflicts of interest. Unified Democratic power of Congress would airs adjacent much problems for him.

Silicon Valley Democrats added different people connected Friday: restrictions connected SpaceX’s Starshield outer work successful Ukraine. In a letter to the White House demanding an investigation, Representatives Sam Liccardo, Jimmy Panetta, and Ro Khanna vowed that the adjacent Congress “will intimately scrutinize national backing awarded to Mr. Musk’s businesses.”