How Elon Musk Learned to Love Political Spending Again

The SpaceX CEO has spent approximately $366 million on the 2026 U.S. midterm election cycle, of which $276 million has been spent since July.

Elon Musk, the world's richest man, who also spent more than $250 million on Donald Trump's re-election campaign, said in May of last year that he plans "much less" political spending for future elections - including the upcoming midterm elections. But newly disclosed donations to Republican groups since then have made him the biggest known donor ahead of the November election.

Of the $276 million, $158 million reportedly went to the Senate Leadership Fund. It is one of the largest political donations known in history. Another $20 million went to the Congressional Leadership Fund, which was created to re-elect House Republicans with House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.

Musk's America PAC, created for the 2024 election, received more than $76 million to try to woo Republican voters and increase turnout. America PAC is boosting Republican candidates in seven battleground states and nearly three dozen House races.

Other conservative groups also received donations from America's most prominent billionaire. Freedom's Lone Star PAC, which supports Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's campaign for the US Senate, received $10 million. Paxton, a Trump-backed Republican, is in a tight race with Democratic state legislator James Talarico.

Another $10 million went to the Republican Governors Association and $2 million to the Republican Attorneys General Association. The Times also reported that Musk has donated more money through groups that have not disclosed their donors.

Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for America PAC, told the Times that "strong investments have allowed the G.O.P. apparatus to get its message out so that Republicans can have a fighting chance to defy history."

Musk's donations reflect his commitment to the political right and improved relations with Trump and the Republican Party after publicly clashing with the president last year and threatening to create a third political party. Republicans are looking to defend their majority in Congress this November, but that is looking more difficult as Democrats have made big gains among voters unhappy with Trump's policies.

Musk's evolving attitude toward political spending

Musk's massive donations for the 2026 midterm elections are a far cry from his previous conservative approach to political spending, though his positions have shifted over the years.

At a Vanity Fair event in 2015, Musk said he "gets involved in politics as little as possible," adding that he only spends a nominal amount on his business interests. In 2015, Musk donated $5,000 to Hillary Clinton's campaign and another $5,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Federal Election Commission records show.

But Musk changed in 2017: His donations went to Republicans, and he spent nearly seven times more on Republican campaigns than Democrats. In 2018, amid reports of a large donation to Yekmask, the then-House Republican tweeted that he was "not a top donor to any political party." Musk took over Twitter in 2022, reinstated Trump's account, and renamed it X months later.

Since then, he has continued to court Republicans by funding campaign efforts. During the 2024 election cycle, he created America PAC, although Musk denied reports at the time that he was donating $45 million a month to boost Trump's campaign. He has also targeted swing state voters and even said he would offer a dubious legal bonus of $1 million to registered voters in an effort to boost turnout.

During the 2024 election on X Live, Musk said America PAC "will continue to work after this election and prepare for the midterms and any midterms."

Musk then took a brief role in the Trump administration as a special adviser to the president, leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency to reduce federal spending. He oversaw government restructuring efforts that disrupted services, eliminated hundreds of thousands of federal jobs and led to numerous legal battles. When Musk officially stepped down in May 2025 amid falling out with Trump, he said he thought he had spent enough politically. But he included a caveat: "If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will. I don't see a reason right now."

In 2025, Musk apparently saw a reason to direct more funding toward cause politics, the midterm primaries. He first threatened to help defeat lawmakers who voted for the Trump administration's massive spending bill, vowing to help them lose their primaries "if that's the last thing I do on this earth." Musk even offered to endorse Rep. Thomas Massey (R, Ky.), a staunch Trump critic, in his re-election campaign. (Messi later missed the qualifiers.)

The latest data on Musk's spending comes as no surprise given what is at stake if the Republicans lose.

Democrats in the US House of Representatives have called for an investigation into his companies' government contracts worth tens of billions of dollars, as well as his activities at the DOGE. He denies accusations that his companies are dependent on these contracts: Musk wrote in an Oct. 2 post on X that "roughly 90 percent of SpaceX's revenue this year will be commercial" and that its government revenue in the final quarter of the year would be less than 5 percent. "SpaceX is much more commercial than the average company in America," he said.

In a Bloomberg podcast released last month, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said that Democrats have told her privately that they plan to subpoena Musk to DOGE if they win the job. House Democrats have made several unsuccessful attempts to subpoena him since Republicans repeatedly blocked them.