Elon Musk plowed nearly $44 million in October into a super PAC working to restore Donald Trump to the White House – pushing the billionaire’s total donations to the group he established to benefit the former president to nearly $119 million, new campaign finance reports show.
The last-minute burst of spending by the world’s richest man comes as Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, continues to lap the former president in fundraising, bringing in about $97 million – six times the amount collected by Trump in the first 16 days of October, according to reports the campaigns filed late Thursday night with the Federal Election Commission.
But both candidates and their aligned political operations went on a spending spree this month – burning through more than half a billion dollars combined during the first half of October as they jockey for advantage ahead of Election Day.
Here are some key takeaways from the filings:
Harris spent more than Trump, but heads into the election with more cash
Harris’ principal campaign committee spent nearly $166 million between October 1 and 16, exceeding the Trump campaign’s $99.7 million in expenditures during the same period. Roughly $130 million of Harris’ campaign spending went toward media expenses.
And the blistering fundraising pace Harris set after ascending to the top of the Democratic ticket at the end of July has given her a bigger financial cushion in the final days of the race. The nearly $119 million remaining in her campaign’s coffers is more than three times the dollars that Trump had remaining in his.
And data from AdImpact, which tracks political advertising, underscores how Harris has put that financial advantage to work on the airwaves in battleground states. Her campaign has spent about $488 million on advertising since President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, including on ads slated to run through Election Day. By contrast, Trump has spent about $284 million over the same period.
Musk aids Trump and Senate Republican candidates, too
Musk has emerged as a major financial figure in this year’s election – underwriting an unorthodox get-out-the-vote effort on Trump’s behalf in key battleground states – a role that the former president has largely ceded to outside groups. In recent days, Musk also offered splashy, $1 million daily sweepstakes for swing-state voters that has drawn scrutiny from the US Justice Department.
The new filings show the tech magnate made four donations totaling $43.6 million to his America PAC in the first half of October. He also wrote checks totaling $12.3 million to other super PACs mostly supporting efforts by Republicans to take control of the Senate.
Before this election, the Tesla CEO and X owner had made relatively modest donations to federal candidates, backing a mix of Democrats and Republicans. But he is deeply engaged in helping Trump win the presidency this time and has joined the Republican nominee on the campaign trail.
Thursday’s filings show that Musk’s super PAC drew other donors in October. Billionaire businessman Nelson Peltz gave $1 million to America PAC and members of the Michigan-based DeVos family, including Trump’s Education secretary, Betsy DeVos, also made six-figure donations.
Other big Trump donors
Other large donors backing Trump include Midwestern packaging magnate Richard Uihlein, who contributed another $6.5 million this month to the super PAC he steers – Restoration PAC, which has been spending heavily in support of Trump’s candidacy. Uihlein, whose family helped found Schlitz Brewing, has long backed conservative, anti-establishment candidates and has emerged as one of the biggest financial backers to pro-Trump efforts this cycle.
Uihlein’s wife, Elizabeth, donated $3 million in October to another pro-Trump group, Preserve America, which has been largely funded by billionaire Miriam Adelson, a physician and widow of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. Ronald Cameron, who oversees poultry-producing giant Mountaire Farms, donated $2 million to Preserve America.
WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum, meanwhile, became one of the latest tech figures to support Trump’s campaign, giving $5 million worth of stock in social media giant Meta to Make America Great Again, Inc., the main super PAC backing Trump, the new filings show. He had previously donated to a super PAC supporting Nikki Haley’s failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
MAGA, Inc., also took in $1 million apiece from Arkansas-based investor Warren Stephens and pharmaceutical heir Woody Johnson, who co-owns the New York Jets and served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Kingdom.
Big checks back Harris, too
Top donors to Future Forward, a super PAC supporting Harris, include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, who gave $25 million to the group in the first half of October, bringing his total giving to the group to $38 million.
But a substantial portion of the nearly $90 million collected by the pro-Harris super PAC over the period – a total of $40 million – came from Future Forward’s nonprofit arm, which does not disclose its donors, obscuring from the public the identity of some of Harris’ backers.
The new filings also show that Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman who has broken with her fellow Republicans to back Harris, isn’t just campaigning with the vice president. Cheney’s political action committee, Our Great Task, donated $2.5 million on October 8 to American Bridge 21st Century, a leading Democratic research and rapid response group working to help Harris.
Legal fees
Even as Trump raises money for his presidential campaign, his political operation continues to underwrite the former president’s legal bills.
Between October 1 and 16, Save America, the former president’s leadership PAC, spent $3.9 million on “legal consulting,” records show. The lion’s share of the money, nearly $3.3 million, went to Robert & Robert. Clifford Robert, the firm’s principal, is one of the lawyers representing Trump in his appeal of his civil fraud judgment in New York.
