A New Wave of Cash Lands in the Final Days

A political action committee funded by Elon Musk has spent nearly $43 million in the first two weeks of October on advertisements and messaging, according to a filing made with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday, October 22, 2026. The committee, America PAC, has also received more than $76 million from Musk personally during that same period. With the election approaching, the group is holding close to $47 million in cash on hand.

The spending has been heavily focused on Texas, where a Senate contest is underway. In the first two weeks of this month, the committee directed $15.2 million to that race, which is double the amount it spent on the contest during the entire summer. Of that total, $12.4 million went toward advertisements critical of Democratic candidate James Talarico, while $2.8 million was used to promote his Republican opponent, Ken Paxton. Filings submitted since then show an additional $9.1 million has been spent against Talarico, bringing the total spent on messaging about him this cycle to almost $28 million. This represents about 40 percent of all spending by the committee for or against candidates.

The committee has also changed the way it reaches voters, allocating $11.4 million to digital advertisements during the two-week period. This amount is close to what was spent on mail and text messages combined. The source of this money is a personal political action committee associated with Elon Musk, who has companies including Tesla and SpaceX based in Texas. According to an analysis of federal election filings, Musk has given more than $445 million to Republican political groups for this election cycle, making him the largest known individual donor in the midterms. More than $165 million of that has been given to America PAC since July.

Musk has been active in the race online. On Wednesday, he posted on X that there is something deeply wrong with Talarico, calling him a creep and claiming he would vote to take away your kids and transition them. Earlier in the month, Musk also shared a claim that Talarico had been treated at a mental health facility. Talarico responded the same day, stating there is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator.

The contest in Texas remains undecided. An Emerson College poll of 1,000 likely voters, conducted from October 17 to 19, found Talarico at 48 percent and Paxton at 46 percent, which is within the poll's 3-point margin of error.

The financial support for Republican candidates has implications beyond individual races. If Democrats win the House, committee leaders have indicated they plan to look into Musk's role in the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and his companies' contracts with the federal government. California Democrat Zoe Lofgren called the number of conflicts of interest an astounding number. On Friday, Silicon Valley Democrats also asked the White House to investigate restrictions on SpaceX's Starshield satellite service in Ukraine. Representatives Sam Liccardo, Jimmy Panetta, and Ro Khanna stated that the next Congress will closely scrutinize federal funding awarded to Mr. Musk's businesses.