Elon Musk spent at least $290 million in the 2024 presidential election to help President Donald Trump and other Republicans take office. But the billionaire’s spending fell flat during a 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and he soured on Trump. Musk insisted at the time that he’d pull back on spending in politics.
As it turns out, Musk’s pause in political spending lasted two months. And he’s become the third largest political donor in the 2026 midterm cycle, behind Andreessen Horowitz and George Soros.
According to a new analysis by the New York Times, Andreessen Horowitz has donated $115.5 million in this cycle, while George Soros has donated $102.9 million. Elon Musk has donated $85 million. And Jeff Yass came in fourth place with $81.8 million in donations. Yass is the billionaire with an enormous stake in TikTok’s former parent company, ByteDance, who held a suspiciously timed phone call with Trump just before the president pulled a 180 on whether the social media app should be banned.
The timing of Musk’s pledge to stop spending on politics and the reality of his spending are interesting. Musk poured $25 million into the coffers of the MAGA judicial candidate in the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race, but the liberal opponent was ultimately victorious on April 7. In total, more than $100 million was spent on that race, and it was considered the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history.
Filings with the Federal Election Commission show that Musk donated $3.2 million to his own political action committee, America PAC, in April 2025 to advance right-wing causes and candidates. But his last donation that month was on April 23, 2025. And Musk’s behavior in government as the head of DOGE was extremely odd, to say the least. The public hated it.
Headlines from Gizmodo from the time might help tell the story:
- Elon Sounds Extremely Depressed After Tesla Profits Plunge 71% (April 21, 2025)
- After 100 Days, Most Americans Hate What Elon Musk Is Doing to the Government (April 28, 2025)
- Elon Wears Two Hats During Trump Meeting in Desperate Bid for Attention (April 30, 2025)
This was all around the time that Grok was spreading conspiracy theories about white genocide of farmers in South Africa, completely unprompted.
By May 20, Musk gave his most petulant interview to date and swore he would go after anyone who attacked Tesla dealerships, suggesting there was a shadowy network of left-wing organizations that had organized vandalism. He also pointed at a journalist, suggesting it was the media’s fault.
That same day, Musk tweeted that he would dial his spending on politics way back, writing, “In terms of political spending I’m going to do a lot less in the future.”
Republicans freaked out at the news. But that didn’t last long. Roughly two months later, on June 27, 2025, Musk gave $5 million to MAGA, Inc., $5 million to Republicans’ Senate Leadership Fund, and $5 million to the Republicans’ Congressional Leadership Fund, according to FEC records.
Musk had a whirlwind year in 2025, starting with his Nazi-style salutes and chainsaw-wielding decimation of the federal government. He also pledged to start his own political party after saying President Trump was in the Epstein files, something that he abandoned in favor of just getting back into the good graces of the Trump regime.
Musk’s empire depends on government contracts for SpaceX and friendly government relations at Tesla for expedited approval on things like self-driving cars. Musk is currently on a trip to China along with other U.S. oligarchs, joining Apple’s Tim Cook and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, among others.
The most recent spending documented at the FEC shows Musk has donated about $1.6 million to America PAC in March 2026, and $10 million to Fight for Kentucky in January 2026. Fight for Kentucky is supporting Nate Morris for the U.S. Senate in that state. While Morris was a largely unknown figure until Musk helped propel him in the race by spending millions, he is perhaps best known for claiming he was endorsed by Charlie Kirk and for criticizing Mitch McConnell for not being right-wing enough.
It’s important to note that this is only the spending we know about. There’s a shadowy world out there where billionaires can donate to groups that don’t need to disclose the sources of their funding. And that $85 million might be just a drop in the bucket compared to what’s actually happening behind the scenes.
But it’s probably a good lesson to take everything Musk says with a huge grain of salt. This is the guy who pledged at the start of 2024 not to donate to any presidential candidate. And then he wound up spending $290 million on Trump and other Republicans.
He also doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to hyping his private companies. We’ve been waiting for fully autonomous driving from Musk for a decade now. But that one has been a failed promise so many times that it has its own Wikipedia page.
