// WIRED US/UK — INTELLIGENZA ARTIFICIALE
Elon Musk’s America PAC Is Quietly Funding November’s Most Consequential Elections
Elon Musk’s America PAC is focusing its war chest on the most consequential Senate races this midterm cycle—and doing so by financing attack ads on Democrats, as voters nationwide sour on the Trump administration’s agenda.
The trend of political parties and outside groups focusing on trashing their opponents is not a new phenomenon. But America PAC's approach has been unusual: for every dollar it has spent supporting GOP Senate candidates, it has spent almost three dollars attacking Democrats.
To monitor America PAC's spending on digital ads and mailers this cycle, our ace team at WIRED has created a live tracker that updates daily and highlights where Musk's political contributions are heading as we enter the waning years of Trump’s second term.
The political stakes are especially high for Republicans this midterms cycle because of the possibility of Democrats taking the majority in the US Senate, should the party flip four battleground races and retain three of the Senate seats it currently holds.
For Musk, the implications of a Democratic-controlled Senate would also be far-reaching, as he personally could become the target of congressional investigations, while his companies might be affected by bills related to tech and AI regulation.
For the critical Texas Senate race, America PAC has poured more than $9.4 million into ads opposing Democratic candidate James Talarico and roughly $1.8 million into ads backing Republican candidate and state attorney general Ken Paxton.
The lopsided spending here is perhaps the least surprising of all of the close Senate contests. Paxton comes with so much personal baggage—from facing impeachment charges that were eventually dropped to having his wife (who has since endorsed him with an ad that doesn’t mention him by name) file for divorce on “biblical grounds”—that trying to boost him with ads highlighting his background is tough.
Republicans in Texas also cannot realistically do positive ads of President Donald Trump and Paxton together, since both men have terrible approval ratings.
The largest single expenditures by America PAC have been two $1.3 million digital media buys opposing Talarico. America PAC has not put any money into television ads, which is being handled by other groups, like MAGA Inc., the Trump-affiliated super PAC.
Meanwhile, the Senate Republican Conference–affiliated Texas PAC has so far booked the lion's share of television ads. Punchbowl News reported last month that Texas PAC has booked around $120 million and was looking to buy $100 million in ad slots before November 3.