Musk spent more than a quarter-billion dollars to elect Trump, including funding a mysterious super PAC, new filings show

By Fredreka Schouten, David Wright and Alex Leeds Matthews, CNN

(CNN) — 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.

Cabinet of donors

Trump has selected other big donors for roles in his incoming administration.

Howard Lutnick, the Cantor Fitzgerald investment bank chief whom Trump has tapped to head the Commerce Department, made a nearly $3 million “in-kind” donation of stock on October 21 to a pro-Trump super PAC, MAGA Inc., according to the organization’s filings Thursday night.

That’s on top of the $6 million that Lutnick previously donated to the super PAC over the course of the election cycle.

Other Trump supporters who have landed spots in his administration also donated to MAGA Inc. They include Linda McMahon, the former wrestling company executive tapped to serve as Education secretary. She donated more than $20 million to the Trump-aligned super PAC this cycle.

McMahon and Lutnick also serve as co-chairs of Trump’s transition operation.

Other Trump picks who have made seven-figure donations to MAGA Inc. include former Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, his choice to lead the Small Business Administration; Scott Bessent, whom Trump has selected as Treasury secretary; and two of his choices for plum diplomatic posts in Europe, Arkansas investor Warren Stephens and Charles Kushner, the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka.

Other big donors

Other uber-wealthy figures who made late donations include venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, whose firm has invested in crypto businesses. They donated a combined $23 million in November to Fairshake, the crypto industry’s main super PAC, the new filings show. Fairshake and aligned groups spent heavily to influence congressional races. Andreessen and Horowitz also donated to a pro-Trump super PAC earlier in the cycle.

Trump, who once dismissed cryptocurrency as a scam, has become a fan of digital assets and has made clear he intends to diverge from the Biden administration’s aggressive regulation of the industry. This week, he announced Paul Atkins, a crypto advocate and co-chair of the Token Alliance, as his pick to serve as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. On Thursday, Trump announced tech investor David Sacks will be his White House “czar” overseeing artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency policy.

Fairshake and its affiliates already have touted a $78 million stockpile for the 2026 midterm elections, in the form of campaign funds left over from this year’s elections and pledged donations.

Harris’ final numbers

Vice President Kamala Harris’ defunct presidential campaign had just $1.8 million in its account on November 25, according to the new filings with federal regulators, having virtually emptied its massive war chest of more than $1 billion.

The final cash on hand total follows intense scrutiny of the Harris campaign’s management of resources in its losing effort. Her frenzied spending in the final weeks of the campaign and Democrats’ aggressive efforts to secure donations after the election, drew intense scrutiny and raised alarms that her campaign was grappling with unpaid bills.

But after record-breaking fundraising, Harris’ operation appears set to close its books without debt, reporting $1.82 million in cash on hand.

The new report, covering activity from October 17 through November 25, also showed the Harris campaign burning through money during the intense home stretch — spending more than $270 million during that period.

For the entire campaign, including outgoing President Joe Biden’s time as the Democratic nominee, the campaign spent roughly $1.2 billion, according to the filing. It’s a gargantuan total, underscoring the soaring expense of modern campaigns, as well as the limits of financial firepower — Harris consistently out-raised Trump — against unforgiving political headwinds.

Trump recently converted his presidential campaign committee into a leadership PAC called Never Surrender, Inc. It reported more than $11 million in debts as of November 25, largely owed to an Iowa firm for “telemarketing & data management,” according to its filing. The committee still had nearly $9.9 million in available cash at the end of the reporting period.

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