Elon Musk, the world’s first and only trillionaire, is blowing away records for political donations in the 2026 cycle. As of Wednesday, he has already contributed over $446 million to super PACs supporting Republicans with most of that money being used in an attempt to rescue Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued Republican Senate candidate in Texas.
This unheard-of political spending dwarfs that of some of the most well-known political donors in recent memory. It far exceeds the total amount of disclosed donations made by billionaire financier and right-wing boogeyman George Soros since 2004, which fall below $400 million, and comes close to the more than $500 million that billionaire casino operators Sheldon and Miriam Adelson gave across five election cycles from 2016 to 2024, according to FEC records.
But with great spending comes great scrutiny. Musk, who spent months leading one of President Donald Trump’s signature initiatives and whose businesses are closely intertwined with the federal government, was already almost certain to face investigation from House Democrats newly-armed with subpoena powers after the midterms.
And it’s increasingly looking like he may also face trouble closer to home. In Texas, where Musk moved in 2020 and relocated Tesla in 2021 and SpaceX in 2024, Democrats are noticing that the richest man in the world has put his great wealth on the scale to stop them from winning. And they’re not taking it kindly.
“What happens in a world where people wake up and Democrats have won some seats in Texas. It creates a very different political map,” said Kendall Scudder, chair of the Texas Democratic Party. “And for somebody like Elon Musk, if you think retribution isn’t on the way, you’re mistaken.”
It is entirely possible that Democrats win the governor’s race and, if things go really south for Republicans, the Texas House. If the state’s decades-long one-party rule is broken and Democrats begin to take over state government, Musk’s all-in bet on it may cost him.
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Since Republicans previously put special regulations targeting only Harris County, the home of Houston and the most populous county in the state, with laws applying only to counties with more than 4 million residents, Democrats could pass laws that only apply to residents with a net worth exceeding $500 billion dollars, Scudder suggests. There are municipal regulations for privately-owned cities, tax laws that could only apply to trillionaires and other business regulations that could complicate Musk’s efforts to buy the state.
“It’s fun to imagine what Democrats could do to inflict some pain on this greedy son of a bitch,” Scudder said.
Individual candidates in Texas have been more than willing to make an enemy of Elon. Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico is running an ad calling out Musk’s effort to buy the Senate race and has made him a target in campaign speeches. Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, has successfully sued to gain access to private communications between her Republican opponent, Gov. Greg Abott, and Musk. Her campaign has also heavily focused on Abbott and Musk’s support for data centers across the state.
Musk’s massive investment to help Paxton isn’t the only way ― just the latest ― that he has rubbed many Texans the wrong way. Since moving to the state, Musk has sought significant benefits from its political leadership, which hasn’t seen a Democrat win statewide since 1994, often against the wishes of local communities.
He bought up an entire village in Cameron County with state support under threat of eminent domain and amid opposition from some local homeowners to create his own city, Starbase, for his rocket company SpaceX. He is currently in talks with Gov. Greg Abbott to purchase an adjacent state park to expand Starbase. The Musk-owned city has also created numerous environmental problems in South Texas.
The state has also provided Musk with extensive tax breaks for his AI data center build out. This has sparked local opposition amid complaints of noise and environmental pollution, and a lawsuit filed by Hinojosa seeking access to messages between Musk and Abbott. A judge ruled that Abbott must hand over thousands of unredacted messages to Hinojosa on Monday.
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At the federal level, Musk worked tirelessly in the White House as the head of DOGE to cut funding for programs that help rural hospitals and farmers. This included delays and canceling health grants, gutting the Department of Agriculture and “feeding” USAID “into the wood-chipper,” which bought up American farm crops for global food assistance.
None of this has made Musk popular in Texas, especially among Democrats.
“People only say Elon Musk’s name with expletives after them,” Scudder said.
That explains his growing political investments in the state, according to Scudder, who says that Musk needs to buy political support, “like every friendship and every relationship the man’s ever had in his life.”
His investments in Texas also come as his influence elsewhere is coming into question. In Silicon Valley, where Musk still wields incredible sway and is revered by many as a game-changing entrepreneur, Democrats are beginning to argue Musk’s unpredictability and willingness to use his technology for political gain ― like he allegedly did in slowing down Starshield service to Ukraine amid its war with Russia ― are harming the industry.
“We represent hundreds of innovation economy employers and workers whose livelihoods depend on the credibility of American technology abroad,” wrote Reps. Sam Liccardo, Jimmy Panetta and Ro Khanna, who represent the region, in a letter to the White House on Friday demanding an investigation into the slowdown of Starshield service. “Politically motivated service interruptions or erratic throttling will undermine reputations developed through decades of work that Americans have led to support our allies and customers throughout the world.”
In an interview, Liccardo said he was less interested in the “outrage theater” of grilling Musk or other tech leaders at a hearing than he was in taking them on financially. He also said he didn’t think Musk deserved investigation because of his political donations, but because of his actions.
“If we’re going to go after Elon Musk, then hit him in the pocketbook,” he said. “He’s got billions of dollars of tax credits, procurement programs and other benefits that he has elicited from this administration. Until we put those on the chopping block, we cannot expect any change in behavior, either from him or for any of the other CEOs whose knees wobble at the thought of challenging Elon Musk.”
Liccardo added: “I am of Sicilian heritage, and my Sicilian sensibilities tell me that you don’t pull a punch when you’re dealing with a bully.”
Annie Rice via Associated Press
On top of the hundreds of millions Musk is donating to prop up Paxton’s campaign, Musk has contributed $5 million to Abbott’s reelection campaign and previously spent $3 million on a local district attorney race, an astronomical sum for a small race.
The Talarico campaign, for its part, did not set out to run against Musk and his influence. The ad responding to Musk’s millions in support for Paxton focuses on the dangers of him buying the state, and avoids arguing that Musk ― who is still admired by many voters as a successful entrepreneur ― is inherently bad.
But the sheer scale of his spending has been hard to ignore, and Talarico has taken to calling Musk out during his stump speeches in the state.
“In all likelihood, if you’ve seen an attack on your TV, that was Elon,” Talarico said during a rally in the Houston suburbs last week. “If you’ve gotten lies in your mailbox, that was Elon. If you’ve received a text message saying scary things about me ― that was Elon, too.”
Hinojosa, too, has become more direct in her criticisms of Musk.
“In less than one month, Elon Musk gave Greg Abbott $5 million to try and buy this election so that he can keep buying up Texans’ land, energy and resources,” she said on Tuesday, not long after Musk’s recent donation to Abbott’s campaign became public. “Texans are fed up with a governor who does the bidding of his billionaire donors while leaving Texans to fend for themselves.”
But money can’t buy love and, sometimes, it doesn’t buy politics either. Talarico is currently favored over the unpopular Paxton in the Senate race. Abbott is locked in a neck-and-neck race with Hinojosa. Democratic turnout is up across the state, as are key groups that have soured on Republicans during Trump’s second term, including Latinos and young people.
Ben Weiss contributed reporting from Sunnyvale, Texas.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misspelled Kendall Scudder’s name.
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