Elon Musk Has Gone All In on Ken Paxton — And the Price Tag Is Stunning

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Elon Musk has reportedly funneled a staggering $158 million through a Republican fundraising group to a Texas super PAC backing Ken Paxton’s Senate campaign.

Teddy Schleifer, a reporter for The New York Times, posted the figures on social media on Thursday. His first post on the subject revealed two massive contributions Musk made to the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF) last month — $75 million on Sept. 9 and another $83 million on Sept. 23.

“Those contributions are IDENTICAL in size and timing to the amounts that SLF transferred to Texas PAC, strongly suggesting that Musk’s donations directly led to the decision by SLF to spend for Paxton through Texas PAC,” he wrote in a follow-up post.

CNN’s Patrick Svitek provided some more context, writing that “a day after SLF got each of these donations, it sent the same amount to Texas PAC,” detailing “$75M to Texas PAC on Sept. 10” and “$83M to Texas PAC on Sept. 24.”

Paxton is running against Democratic Texas state Rep. James Talarico. The Republican’s campaign, though, has been plagued by a string of controversies. Most recently, a Wall Street Journal report featured video of him celebrating New Year’s Eve in Dubai with two men facing federal criminal charges in the U.S.

Nonetheless, Republicans spent $122 million in just the month of September to support him.

“Texas PAC is 100% funded by the Senate Leadership Fund,” continued Schleifer on social media. “All money is fungible, yeah. But Elon Musk, indirectly, financed Texas PAC for Paxton.”

According to a Monday Reuters report, Musk, the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, has spent a whopping $336 million supporting Republican candidates and efforts to maintain the GOP’s control of Congress this midterm election cycle, including $276 million in the third quarter alone. His contributions have already surpassed the roughly $290 million he spent backing President Donald Trump and other Republicans during the 2024 election.

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