Elon Musk embraces former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds on October 5 in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Elon Musk plowed at least $260 million into efforts to send Donald Trump back to the White House, new filings show - a massive infusion that makes him one of the largest single political underwriters of a presidential campaign and underscores the outsized influence of the world's wealthiest person on this year's election.
Thursday's filings with the Federal Election Commission show that the Tesla and SpaceX executive gave a total of $238 million to a super PAC that he founded this year, America PAC, which worked to turn out voters on Trump's behalf in key states.
But he also was the financial backer of other groups that cropped up in the final days of the election to support Trump, including one that spent millions on advertising to defend his record on abortion. It had sought to link Trump's views on abortion to those of late Supreme Court Justice and liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Musk, through a trust that bears his name, donated $20.5 million to the group, named RBG PAC, on October 24, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. He was the sole donor to the group, which was formed in mid-October. The donation's timing meant that Musk's involvement was not disclosed until Thursday's post-election filings with the federal regulators.
Ginsburg's granddaughter, Clara Spera, publicly denounced the ads - which sought to neutralize abortion as a liability for Trump in the campaign - as misleading and an "affront" to Ginsburg's legacy as a staunch defender of abortion rights.
According to the new filings, Musk also donated $3 million to the MAHA Alliance, a super PAC that ran stark ads in key swing states urging supporters of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to back Trump in the closing stretch of the campaign. Kennedy himself had ended his independent campaign over the summer and endorsed Trump.
MAHA stands for "Make America Healthy Again," Kennedy's spin on Trump's MAGA catchphrase. Trump has now tapped Kennedy, one of the nation's most prominent anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, to oversee the Health and Human Services Department.
Musk has emerged as a key player in Trump's orbit during the transition to a second White House term. The president-elect has tapped the tech magnate, along with former Republican presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy, to oversee a new Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, aimed at cutting government spending. Musk spent part of Thursday on Capitol Hill, meeting with lawmakers as part of early talks into trimming the size of government.
Reports covering fundraising and spending during the final weeks of the campaign and the post-election period are due by midnight to the FEC.