MAGA billionaire Elon Musk gave roughly $75 million to his pro-Donald Trump political action committee in just three months, making him one of the Republican movement's biggest bankrollers, filings with the Federal Election Commission showed Tuesday.
Musk’s America PAC spent about $72 million in the same July to September reporting period, the filings said.
The cash infusion from the out-and-proud MAGA loving Musk puts him in league with GOP megadonors like Miriam Adelson, who gave $95 million to her own pro-Trump super PAC in the same period.
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Musk, the Tesla CEO and world’s richest man, also plans to barnstorm Pennsylvania in the coming several days, he announced on his social media platform X. He rallied with Trump in Butler, PA earlier this month, telling the former president’s supporters that “the other side wants to take away your freedom of speech.”
Elon Musk jumps on stage at a rally with former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania on October 5, 2024.
Jim Watson/AFPHe will deliver a series of “talks” open to the public that are really designed to get voters to hand over their precious personal data, which is highly coveted by campaigns and PACs for get-out-the-vote efforts.
Attending one of Musk’s talks requires a person to sign a “Petition in Favor of Free Speech and the Right to Bear Arms,” which asks that they hand over a full name, e-mail address, phone number and mailing address.
The petition itself is essentially meaningless, but getting people to sign meaningless petitions is a tried-and-true sleight of hand trick among campaigns to obtain voter data. For Musk’s America PAC, which is focused on ground turnout in the election rather than campaign ad blitzes, it's especially important.
Musk’s committee plans on hiring an army of canvassers in the coming weeks to target swing state voters, and is also running campaigns to urge them to use mail-in ballots.
Musk’s PAC is also hugely important to the Trump campaign, which has lagged behind Vice President Kamala Harris’ organization in fundraising and is relying on tens of millions of dollars injected into the election by well-funded outside groups.
Harris’ campaign and allied committees have raised over $1 billion in the less than 90 days since she took over as the Democratic nominee.
Musk’s super PAC, which is targeting voters in battleground states, could therefore play a major role in determining the outcome of the election in places with narrow margins on voting day.
The Washington Post reported earlier this week that Musk’s Super PAC has struggled with its founder’s mercurial and hands-on approach, including his hiring and firing of multiple vendors that has contributed to struggles recruiting and retaining canvassers in southwestern swing states Arizona and Nevada.
Other billionaires bankrolling Trump supporting efforts include Illinois packaging magnate Richard Uihlein and Wyoming banking heir Timothy Mellon.
