WASHINGTON — Elon Musk, a tech mogul who is the world’s richest person, contributed over $70 million to assist Donald Trump and other Republican candidates in the November election. This makes him one of the largest donors to GOP causes in this campaign season, according to campaign finance disclosures released this week.
Musk donated this sum over the summer to America PAC, a super political action committee he founded in May to support Trump’s bid to return to the White House. It quickly became a key component of Trump’s election strategy.
“The America PAC is simply striving for common sense, centrist values,” the Space X and Tesla founder stated on Tuesday on his social media platform X, shortly after the amount of his contribution was made public in a campaign finance filing.
Super PACs like Musk’s America PAC can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money, but they are typically prohibited from coordinating their efforts with the candidates they support. A recent opinion by the Federal Election Commission, which regulates federal political campaigns, allowed candidates and these big-spending groups to collaborate on so-called ground game efforts, which involve deploying teams of people to knock on doors to encourage voting.
While candidates and political parties have traditionally organized and funded such efforts, Trump’s campaign has struggled to raise money this year and has turned to a few outside groups to handle the work, with Musk’s America PAC being the most prominent among them.
However, this outsourcing of a core function to a group of untested entities operating independently has raised concerns. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ decision to use an outside group for canvassing during his presidential bid was criticized as a contributing factor to his campaign’s failure.
So far, America PAC has spent over $38 million on voter “canvassing” efforts, according to campaign finance disclosures.
A significant portion of America PAC’s funds has been directed to several consulting firms, including several linked to Phil Cox, a former presidential campaign aide to DeSantis and a former executive director of the Republican Governors Association. Businesses under the umbrella of Cox’s various companies have received at least $21 million since August, records show.
Trump’s outsourcing of much of his get-out-the-vote effort is not the only unconventional strategy his campaign has adopted this year. His campaign and allies have also abandoned the traditional approach to voter mobilization, which typically focused on persuading independent or moderate voters. Instead, they are attempting to boost turnout among Trump supporters who rarely vote, a novel but risky strategy.
Although Musk is America PAC’s largest donor, he is not the sole contributor. The super PAC also collected about $8.75 million from a small group of wealthy donors, including the Winklevoss twins, Tyler and Cameron, the disputed creators of Facebook.
The super PAC has spent nearly $80 million this year. While most of the spending has been allocated to the presidential race, at least $5 million has been directed towards supporting Republican House candidates.