In May 2025, Elon Musk said he planned to cut back on political spending. "I think I've done enough," he told Bloomberg. Then he added the part most headlines skipped: "If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it."
Democrats gave him a reason.
This month, senior Democrats let it be known they're drawing up plans to investigate Musk if they win control of Congress. The motive was in the reporting: they "have long eyed investigating the world's richest man and the GOP's top donor." Musk's answer on X was "Live by the sword, die by the sword."
Now he's answering with his checkbook too.
New federal filings show Musk gave about $76.8 million to America PAC, the super PAC he founded, in the first half of October: $12.6 million on October 6, $19 million on October 8, and $43.2 million on October 14. That brings his total to America PAC this cycle to $178 million.
He has also given $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC working to keep the Senate in Republican hands. Much of that money went to Texas, where Republican Ken Paxton is running for Senate against Democrat James Talarico. America PAC itself has spent about $28 million opposing Talarico and nearly $5 million supporting Paxton.
All told, Musk has given more than $442 million to help Republicans in the 2026 midterms, with 11 days to go. In 2024, he spent more than $277 million helping elect President Trump.
The Democrats complaining about it have a short memory. In 2020, Michael Bloomberg spent about $1 billion of his own money on a presidential campaign that won him American Samoa. George Soros put $125 million into his own super PAC to help Democrats. Nobody on the left called that a threat to democracy.
Musk has also been honest about where his money goes. It's in his own name, reported to the Federal Election Commission, and aimed at the outcome he's said he wants: Republican control of Congress.
The reasons aren't hard to figure out. A Democratic Congress has promised to use its subpoena power to investigate Musk, his companies, and his time at the Department of Government Efficiency, where he went after the kind of waste that Washington had ignored for decades. A Democratic Senate could stall President Trump's agenda for the rest of his term. Musk spent 2025 trying to cut wasteful federal spending, and he's spending 2026 trying to keep the people who defended it from taking back power.
America PAC is putting the money into the unglamorous work that wins elections: knocking on doors, contacting voters, and getting Republicans to the polls.
Earlier this month, Musk stood in the White House to receive the National Medal of Science, the nation's highest scientific honor, alongside Nvidia's Jensen Huang, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, and AMD's Lisa Su. President Trump called him "a modern-day Thomas Edison" and "a national treasure." He's the man who made electric cars mainstream, built the rockets that now carry American astronauts, and connected Ukraine to the internet when Russia tried to cut it off.
Democrats don't like that he's using his fortune to support Republicans. Their plan for dealing with it is to investigate him. They'd really like to find a way to jail him if they can.
In 2025, Musk said he'd spend again if he saw a reason. In October 2026, after Democrats announced their plan to target him, he gave $76.8 million in two weeks.