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Oct 17, 2024

How much is Elon Musk spending on Donald Trump's campaign?

Elon Musk became one of the largest donors of the entire 2024 election cycle in just three months. Between July 3 and Sept. 5, the Tesla (TSLA) CEO donated $74.95 million to America PAC, the super PAC

Elon Musk became one of the largest donors of the entire 2024 election cycle in just three months.

Between July 3 and Sept. 5, the Tesla (TSLA) CEO donated $74.95 million to America PAC, the super PAC he founded a few months earlier, according to campaign finance filings published late Wednesday night. That’s a far cry from the $45 million per month he had initially planned to spend, as reported by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. But it’s still a massive sum.

It’s more than eight times the $8.75 million America PAC received from more than a dozen donors in July. Contributors in that fundraising haul included the billionaire Winklevoss twins, Sequoia Capital partners, and Ken Howery, a former ambassador to Sweden and co-founder of PayPal (PYPL), among others.

The super PAC has already spent the majority of its cash, leaving it with just $4 million on hand at the end of September. Although most of the spending has gone toward efforts helping former President Donald Trump’s campaign in key swing states like Arizona and Pennsylvania, the group has also spent millions across more than a dozen tight House races.

Musk in July said the group “is not supposed to be a sort of hyper-partisan” organization, but that his principles are currently aligned with the idea of “Make America Greater.” The billionaire has dedicated himself both privately and publicly to helping put Trump back in the White House, often using his social media platform X (META) as a mouthpiece to criticize Democrats and prop up the former president.

Musk on Wednesday plans to give a “series of talks throughout” Pennsylvania, as he continues to promote the former president. He’s pitched going on a campaign bus tour across the state and knocking on doors, The Times reported.

It’s unclear how successful his group’s efforts in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada will be, both due to the late entry into the election season and a handful of setbacks. America PAC is also being investigated by authorities in Michigan and North Carolina over a misleading website that promoted voter registration help, but appeared to focus more on collecting data.

Musk — who also leads the artificial intelligence startup xAI and the brain chip startup Neuralink— is eyeing a government post overseeing a commission “tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” in a potential Trump administration. He’s suggested naming that commission the Department of Government Efficiency” — or DOGE, a reference to Musk’s favorite meme-based cryptocurrency.

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