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Elon Musk donated $10mn last month to help elect Republicans in the forthcoming US midterm elections, as the world’s richest man repaired his relationship with President Donald Trump and backed away from his threat to launch a rival right-wing party.
The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive, who fell out with Trump last year over what he called an “outrageous, pork-filled” spending bill, donated $5mn to each of the main fundraising vehicles for Republican candidates for Senate and Congress, according to Federal Election Commission filings released on Saturday. He also added millions to his own political fund.
Trump’s own Super Pac, Maga Inc, reported that it had entered 2026 with a $304mn war chest, making it by far the largest force in Republican politics.
Major donors to the president’s Pac in recent weeks include OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife Anna, who gave $12.5mn each in December, as well as Crypto.com, which gave $20mn in the same month. Crypto.com has inked various deals with businesses run by Trump’s family.
Musk’s donations, which bring his total political spending last year to at least $75mn, came weeks before the billionaire dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Trump later said that Musk, who in June insinuated the president was implicated in files related to the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, was a “good guy”.
The Tesla boss’s’ recent donations represent just a fraction of the more than $250mn he spent to support Trump’s election campaign in 2024. He also spent more than $23mn last year backing a conservative candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, who lost by a large margin.
The donations show that Musk, who just months ago said he had “done enough” political spending, has re-established himself as a financial force in Republican politics. They also come after his stint as the head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency wiped billions of dollars from Tesla’s market value and led to the cancellation of some Starlink contracts.
At the height of his feud with Trump last year, Musk announced plans to form an “America Party” to fight what he alleged was a “one-party system” that he blamed for “bankrupting the country”.
Other large donors to Republican causes revealed on Saturday were casino magnate Steve Wynn and Blackstone chair Stephen Schwarzman, who each gave $5mn to the Senate leadership fund late last year. Wynn gave a further $2mn to the equivalent congressional fund.
Apart from party affiliated funds, Pacs representing the crypto and AI industries have raised record sums.
Fairshake, a fundraising vehicle backed by some of the biggest names in crypto, this week said it had amassed $193mn to back candidates who support the sector in the upcoming midterms.
