Elon Musk spent greater than $250 million to assist elect Donald Trump, in keeping with marketing campaign finance experiences launched on Thursday, together with a late increase of $20 million to a brilliant PAC that invoked the late U.S. Supreme Court docket Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Federal filings detail how Musk — the world’s richest man — spent mammoth quantities to help Trump’s profitable bid for the White Home. Most of that funding was despatched to his pro-Trump tremendous PAC, America PAC, which acquired a complete of $238 million. However Musk additionally spent greater than $40 million on checks to voters in swing states, a part of his controversial, $1 million giveaways, The New York Instances reported.
Probably the most revealing filings reveals how the billionaire backed a gaggle referred to as RBG PAC with a $20.5 million donation on Oct. 24, simply weeks earlier than the November election. The group has a webpage honoring Ginsburg, a serious judicial advocate for abortion protections, and spent tens of millions operating adverts that includes Trump’s pledges to oppose a federal abortion ban ought to he be elected to reassure voters.
“Nice Minds Assume Alike,” the web site reads, which includes a picture of each Trump and Ginsburg.
The group’s donors weren’t identified till the Thursday filings with the FEC.
On the time, the justice’s granddaughter lambasted the PAC, telling The New York Times it had no connection to her household and was “an affront to my late grandmother’s legacy.”
“The usage of her identify and picture to help Donald Trump’s re-election marketing campaign, and particularly to counsel that she would approve of his place on abortion, is nothing in need of appalling,” Clara Spera stated in a press release to the paper.
The Instances notes the complete determine Musk spent within the 2024 marketing campaign cycle might by no means be identified, noting he might have additionally funded dark-money teams that aren’t required to reveal their donors.
Musk has rapidly grow to be some of the seen members of Trump’s entourage as he strikes to fill his upcoming cupboard with loyalists and assault canine. Alongside former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk will spearhead the newly-minted DOGE, or the Division of Authorities Effectivity.
The pair have pledged to slash government bureaucracy, calling the big federal workforce a “fourth unelected department of presidency.”