Musk PAC Spends $15.2 Million in Texas

Elon Musk’s personal political committee, America PAC, received more than $76 million from the Tesla and SpaceX CEO during the first two weeks of October. The group filed this figure with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday evening. The money is intended to support Republican candidates in the final stretch of the midterm campaign.

The committee spent nearly $43 million in that same two-week period. It now holds almost $47 million in cash. The Texas Senate race absorbed the largest share of the new spending. America PAC directed $15.2 million to that contest, which is double the amount it spent in Texas over the entire summer.

Of the Texas allocation, $12.4 million went to ads attacking Democratic candidate James Talarico. The PAC spent $2.8 million promoting Republican Ken Paxton. Daily filings show the group has since spent another $9.1 million against Talarico. This brings the cycle total for spending against the Democrat to nearly $28 million, or about 40 percent of the PAC’s total candidate support spending.

The group shifted its strategy toward digital media. It spent $11.4 million on online ads in the reporting window. That figure is close to what the PAC spent on mail and texting combined. Musk has also engaged directly in the race. On Wednesday, he posted on X that there is something deeply wrong with Talarico, calling him a creep and claiming the candidate would vote to take away children and transition them.

Talarico responded to the posts the same day. He stated that there is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator. An Emerson College poll of 1,000 likely Texas voters, conducted from October 17 to 19, shows Talarico at 48 percent and Paxton at 46 percent. The margin of error for that poll is 3 points.

Musk has given more than $445 million to Republican political groups this election cycle. He is the largest known individual donor in the midterms. More than $165 million of that total has gone to America PAC since July. The PAC declined to comment on the new filing. If Democrats win the House, committee chairs have signaled they will investigate Musk’s role in the Department of Government Efficiency and federal contracts held by his companies.

Representatives Sam Liccardo, Jimmy Panetta, and Ro Khanna recently sent a letter to the White House demanding an investigation into restrictions on SpaceX’s Starshield satellite service in Ukraine. They said the next Congress will closely scrutinize federal funding awarded to Musk’s businesses.