Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, has reclaimed his title as the single biggest known political donor at the federal level, dropping more than $280 million over the summer to boost Republican candidates in this year’s midterm elections.
And his biggest mission so far: to boost Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in what’s become one of the most expensive contests this year, the Texas Senate race.
In September, the billionaire tech executive transferred a whopping $158 million into the GOP leadership-linked super PAC Senate Leadership Fund in two installments. The first one totaled $75 million on Sept. 9 and $85 million on Sept. 23, according to the group’s latest filing to the Federal Election Commission.
And a day after each of those contributions, SLF transferred the exact same amount of money to pro-Ken Paxton super PAC Texas PAC, their latest disclosures show.
Democrat James Talarico currently has a 3 point lead over Paxton, according to MS NOW’s polling data partner FiftyPlusOne, meaning this race is still a toss-up.
Musk’s eye-popping donations to SLF reportedly came on the heels of SLF and Musk’s political advisors’ conversations about matching contributions to boost pro-Paxton efforts in the final stretch of the election. Earlier in August, Musk’s trust and SLF had respectively donated $10 million and $5 million to Lone Star Liberty PAC, another pro-Paxton super PAC. That’s according to the super PAC’s latest disclosure. The infusion of cash from Musk and SLF has allowed both Texas PAC and Lone Star Liberty PAC to dominate the Texas airwaves in the past month. In particular, Texas PAC has quickly become the top spender in what was an already expensive race.
Texas PAC has since burned through at least $132 million of the newly raised money on ads, postage and other efforts in support of Paxton and against his Democratic opponent James Talarico, according to FEC filings, with ad tracking data showing an additional tens of millions of dollars worth of reserved air time in the coming weeks.
Notably, during the long and contentious Texas Senate GOP primary, SLF had publicly campaigned against Paxton in an effort to protect incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, only for the six-term senator to lose to Paxton after President Donald Trump’s last-minute endorsement of the state’s embattled attorney general.
But SLF quickly pivoted in support of Paxton once he was nominated. And now, the $158 million from Musk makes up well over half of SLF’s total fundraising in the third quarter of this year, though the money was immediately rerouted to the pro-Paxton super PAC. Still, SLF boasted a $155 million war chest entering October.
In all, the Texas Senate race has already drawn in more than $500 million just in ad spending from across the aisle, according to ad data firm AdImpact.
But Texas of course isn’t Musk’s only interest.
In the last three months, Musk has also dropped a series of massive donations totaling $89 million into his own super PAC, dubbed America PAC, which has been spending tens of millions of dollars in support of Republicans in other key states like Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Maine.
Musk also gave $20 million in early September to Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC linked to House republican leadership, according to the group’s latest filing.
America PAC quickly spent more than $50 million in the last quarter mainly on canvassing, research, consulting and ad spending and entered October with just $12 million in cash on hand.
According to FEC data, since 2025, Musk has poured at least $366 million into federal elections.
Other top Republican donors so far this cycle include Richard Uihlein, who has given a total of $130 million to various federal campaigns and groups. Miriam Adelson, another top spender, has given at least $70 million to various Republican causes, including $25 million to pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc.
The 2026 midterm cycle is on track to become one of the most expensive midterm elections in history, with FEC data showing more than $13.5 billion raised across candidates, PACs and party committees, and more than $10 billion spent just on ads, according to AdImpact.
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