Musk Pours Another $76.8 Million Into America PAC, Pushing His Record Midterm Giving Past $442 Million

Elon Musk wrote three more checks to his America PAC in the first two weeks of October, $12.6 million on Oct. 6, $19 million on Oct. 8 and $43.2 million on Oct. 14, according to the super PAC's pre-election report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission. Add about $2 million in voter-data and polling work credited to him, and Musk supplied every dollar the PAC took in over those two weeks: $76.8 million.

That pushes his giving this cycle to more than $442 million, POLITICO reported, which first reported the new money Thursday evening. "There is no precedent in modern American history for any donor spending as much as he has," POLITICO wrote. Bloomberg's count is a bit higher, at more than $445 million.

Where the money goes

America PAC isn't a TV-ad shop. It runs the door-knocking. The PAC spent $42.7 million in those same two weeks, per the filing: $27.7 million on mail, digital ads, texts and phone calls in specific races, and $7.4 million more on paid canvassers knocking doors. It still had $46.5 million in the bank on Oct. 14, with three weeks to go.

That ground game started this summer. Between July and September the PAC put $35.8 million into field operations, WIRED found, close to the roughly $45 million it had spent at the same point in 2024, when it ran most of the canvassing for President Trump. WIRED called it a "presidential-level field operation" for a midterm.

The targets are seven Senate battlegrounds, Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire and Alaska, plus 32 House districts, from Mike Lawler's seat in New York to Juan Ciscomani's in Arizona, the filing shows. Texas comes first. America PAC has spent $33.1 million on the Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico, $9.4 million backing Jon Husted against Sherrod Brown in Ohio, and $8.6 million backing Mike Rogers in Michigan, Bloomberg reported. In just the first two weeks of October, $15.4 million of its race-specific spending landed in Texas.

The checks to America PAC are only part of it. Between July and September, Musk also gave $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, the main GOP Senate super PAC, plus $20 million to the House GOP's Congressional Leadership Fund, $10 million to the Republican Governors Association and $2 million to the Republican Attorneys General Association, CNBC reported. America PAC confirmed the numbers, the AP reported.

Bigger than any donor before him

In 2024 Musk spent about $291 million to help elect President Trump, the most of any donor that year, according to OpenSecrets. Next was banking heir Timothy Mellon at $197 million. Musk has now beaten his own record by about $150 million, in a year with no presidential race.

For scale, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam, long the GOP's biggest givers, put in $308 million over 30 years, from 1990 to 2020, CNBC reported. Musk passed that in one cycle. The Washington Post calls him the "biggest-ever individual donor" to federal elections.

Democrats aren't short on billionaires

The left has its own big checks. George Soros is the top Democrat on the Post's 2026 donor list at $102 million, through his Democracy PAC. Michael Bloomberg poured more than $80 million into the midterms in just the last two months, including $16 million to House Majority PAC and $2.5 million to a super PAC backing Talarico, the Post reported. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman gave $11.5 million to Lone Star Rising, a super PAC backing Talarico, per CNBC, and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has spent more than $38 million, The Hill reported.

The party groups are flush too. Senate Majority PAC, the Democrats' top Senate super PAC, has raised $354 million this year, POLITICO reported, and House Majority PAC and an allied group that doesn't disclose its donors say they've raised $514 million this cycle, per the Post. Democratic candidates have outraised Republicans, the Post found. Musk is the reason the GOP side can match them.

What America PAC says

When Musk restarted the PAC in July, spokesman Andrew Romeo said the president's team and the GOP "have built a top-notch operation that will put Republicans in a strong position to buck history and retain control of Congress this fall, and we're excited to again be part of the team," Axios reported. The PAC, run by Musk's top political adviser Chris Young, says it knocked on more than 10 million doors in 2024.

History says the party in the White House loses House seats in a midterm. Musk is betting nearly half a billion dollars that doors knocked in Texas, Ohio and Michigan can change that. Election Day is Nov. 3.