 "World's richest man Elon Musk is now America's biggest political donor")
By Bill Allison
Elon Musk poured at least $274 million into political groups in 2024, fueling a spending spree that helped Donald Trump win the presidency, and securing a new title for himself: the most prolific donor of the election cycle.
His total puts him far ahead of the second-biggest donor, investor Timothy Mellon, who has given $197 million mainly to Republicans, according to contributors tracked by OpenSecrets.
The bulk of Musk’s giving was focused on the presidential race. He gave $238.5 million to America PAC, the super political action committee he founded, including an additional $75 million in the final weeks of the campaign, according to its latest filing with the Federal Election Commission.
America PAC spent $159 million since launching earlier this year to help level the financial playing field for Trump, whose campaign was badly outraised by Vice President Kamala Harris. Trump outsourced his ground game to outside groups like America PAC, which spent $86 million on canvassing operations. It also paid for digital advertising on Trump’s behalf, including ads on Meta Platform Inc.’s Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s Google.
The super PAC’s filing shows it made 18 payments of $1 million to individuals who each served as a “spokesperson consultant.” Musk offered a daily giveaway of $1 million to a registered voter in a battleground state over the final days of the campaign who signed an online petition pledging to support free speech and gun rights. It also offered more modest payments of $47 for individuals who got other registered voters to virtually sign the petition.
The US Justice Department sent America PAC a letter advising it that the payments might run afoul of federal laws that bar paying individuals to vote or to register to vote. Philadelphia’s district attorney sued Musk and America PAC, accusing him of running an “unlawful lottery,” at the end of October.
That suit failed to win an injunction to stop the payments.
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Musk also gave $20.5 million to RBG PAC, a super PAC that ran ads claiming that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late Supreme Court Justice and a staunch supporter of abortion rights, had the same position on the issue as Trump. RBG PAC attempted to tie Trump to reproductive rights and diffuse a major political liability.
The SpaceX and Tesla chief executive officer had only been a modest political donor until this year. But the giving has lofted him into Trump’s inner orbit: He’s become a regular at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago estate, and was tapped, along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, a federal advisory committee that intends to recommend sweeping cuts to government spending and bureaucracy. Musk and Ramaswamy visited lawmakers at the Capitol on Thursday to promote the effort.
Musk, who is worth $361.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has seen his wealth surge since Trump won the election last month.
Some of Musk’s companies could benefit in Trump’s second term. The president-elect tapped Jared Isaacman, a Musk ally and an astronaut for SpaceX, to serve as the next Nasa administrator. SpaceX is one of Nasa’s biggest partners and frequently bids for the agency’s contracts. Musk was quick to congratulate Isaacman in a social media post.
Electric Vehicle maker Tesla is seeking regulatory approval for autonomous cars, something members of Trump’s transition team have said will be one of the Transportation Department’s priorities. Self-driving vehicles face significant obstacles under current federal rules.