Musk Pours $76 Million Into Texas Senate Race

Elon Musk’s personal political committee just dumped more than $76 million into the 2026 midterm election race in the first two weeks of October. According to a pre-election report filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday evening, this massive injection of cash is designed to boost Republican candidates during the final stretch of the campaign. The filing reveals that the group, known as America PAC, has moved aggressively to influence the outcome in key battlegrounds.

The spending has been concentrated heavily in the Texas Senate race, which emerged as the primary target for the new funds. The committee allocated $15.2 million to that specific contest, which is double the amount they spent in the same state during the entire summer. Of that total, $12.4 million was used to run negative ads against Democratic candidate James Talarico, while $2.8 million went toward promoting Republican Ken Paxton. Daily reports filed after the initial report show an additional $9.1 million spent against Talarico, bringing his total cycle spending to nearly $28 million.

This figure represents roughly 40 percent of all the money America PAC has spent supporting or opposing candidates throughout the cycle. The committee is also shifting its strategy toward digital platforms. In the same two-week period, they spent $11.4 million on online advertising. This amount is nearly equal to what they spent on traditional mail and text message campaigns combined, signaling a major pivot to reach voters on their phones and computers.

Musk’s involvement goes beyond just writing checks. He has been active on social media, specifically on X, where he posted on Wednesday that there is something deeply wrong with Talarico. He went further, calling the candidate a creep and claiming without provided evidence that Talarico would vote to take away voters' kids and transition them. Earlier in the month, Musk shared a false claim that Talarico had been treated at a mental health facility. Talarico responded on the same day, stating that there is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal U.S. Senator.

Overall, Musk has given more than $445 million to Republican political groups for this election cycle. Analysis of FEC filings indicates this makes him the largest known individual donor in the midterms. Since July alone, more than $165 million of that total has flowed directly to America PAC. The committee declined to comment on the new filings. With companies like Tesla and SpaceX based in Texas, the state’s outcome is personally significant for the billionaire, who holds nearly $47 million in cash in the PAC as it enters the final leg of the campaign.

The stakes for Musk extend well beyond the Texas Senate seat. If Democrats manage to win the House, the lawmakers poised to lead its committees have signaled they will investigate his role in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. They also plan to look closely at his companies' federal contracts and what California Democrat Zoe Lofgren described as an astounding number of conflicts of interest. Unified Democratic control of Congress would pose even greater challenges for him.

Silicon Valley Democrats added another specific target on Friday by focusing on restrictions for SpaceX’s Starshield satellite service in Ukraine. In a letter sent to the White House demanding an investigation, Representatives Sam Liccardo, Jimmy Panetta, and Ro Khanna vowed that the next Congress would closely scrutinize federal funding awarded to Mr. Musk’s businesses.

Despite the heavy spending, the race in Texas remains a toss-up. An Emerson College poll of 1,000 likely Texas voters, conducted from October 17 to 19, found Talarico at 48 percent and Paxton at 46 percent. This gap falls within the poll’s three-point margin of error, suggesting that the intense final-week spending could still swing the outcome.