Last year, Elon Musk looked into a camera and said he thought he'd "done enough" political spending and planned to do "a lot less" in the future. Then he authorized more than $100 million for the 2026 midterms and his super PAC spent $800,000 in August alone. So. That happened.
The 'I'm Basically Done' Guy Is Very Much Not Done
America PAC, the super PAC controlled by the world's richest person, disclosed Wednesday that it spent over $800,000 in August targeting competitive Senate and House races across seven states, according to CBS News. The bulk of it landed in Texas and Maine, where Republicans are defending Senate seats, but the money also touched Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan, and Alaska. This is August. One month. The opening act.
For context, Musk spent over $239 million helping Republican candidates in 2024, making him the single largest donor in the entire election cycle for either party, per Federal Election Commission filings. And when asked last year whether he planned to keep up that pace, he said he'd be pulling back significantly. He said, with apparent sincerity, "I think I've done enough." The New York Times is now reporting he's authorized America PAC to spend over $100 million on the midterms. So when Musk says he's done, apparently what he means is: wait a few months.
Where the Money Is Going and What It's Buying
Every dollar disclosed in Wednesday's filing was categorized as spending on "PRINTING," which means mail advertisements. Texas got the biggest slice at $247,595, followed by Maine at $170,224, Ohio at $105,675, and New Hampshire at $91,458. The filing was signed off by Chris Young, a GOP operative and former DOGE employee who Musk brought on in 2024 to run America PAC's day-to-day operations.
Separately, CBS News reports that America PAC spent over $207,000 on digital ads in Texas, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Maine, per ad tracking firm AdImpact and Facebook ad library records. Most of the digital ads are straightforward get-out-the-vote messages. One is not. One features New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and warns that if you don't vote in November, "socialism could declare victory over America." The red-scare playbook, freshly laminated, courtesy of the guy who runs a private rocket company and owns a social media platform.
Mike Johnson Swings Through Texas, Sees an Old Friend
House Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed to CBS News that he met with Musk during a recent campaign swing through Texas, which has both competitive House districts and a Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico. When asked whether the two discussed midterm spending, Johnson declined to share details of the conversation.
"He's made public a lot of what he's doing. I'm going to talk about our conversation on that point, but we're gonna win the midterms," Johnson said, in what may be the most content-free answer a sitting Speaker has given to a direct question this cycle. Which is saying something. The Speaker of the House meeting privately with the man pumping nine figures into Republican races and declining to describe the conversation is, fine, completely normal, nothing to see here, carry on.
The Races on America PAC's Hit List
The August disclosures cover nearly every race analysts have flagged as genuinely competitive in the Senate this cycle: Texas, Maine, Ohio, New Hampshire, Iowa, Michigan, and Alaska. That's a pretty comprehensive map of where control of the chamber could actually flip. It is not the spending pattern of someone who has "done enough."
On the House side, America PAC directed money toward competitive districts in Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Wisconsin. Republicans currently hold a thin House majority, and Musk is clearly treating his super PAC as a backstop against losing it. According to The New York Times, the total authorization for this cycle exceeds $100 million. August's $800,000 is not the main event. August is the soundcheck.
The Dingo Take
Elon Musk told the world he was stepping back from politics. He said it plainly, on the record, in an interview. Either he meant it and then changed his mind, or he never meant it and was lying. There is not a third option here that reflects well on him.
What makes this particularly worth watching is the institutional infrastructure behind it. This isn't a billionaire writing a check to a party committee and calling it a day. America PAC is a targeted, professionally staffed political operation, run by a former employee of the government agency Musk himself ran, coordinating spending across virtually every competitive race in the country. It has its own operative class, its own ad strategy, its own direct-mail printing apparatus. It is, functionally, a shadow political party funded entirely by one person who also owns a major communications platform and recently ran a federal agency. The scale of what's being built here deserves a lot more scrutiny than it's currently getting.
And the Mamdani ad is worth pausing on. Musk's PAC is running ads warning Americans about the socialist menace of New York City's mayor in races in Texas, Michigan, and Maine. Mamdani can't even campaign in those states on Musk's behalf. The whole point is to conjure a bogeyman, spend heavily on fear, and hope nobody notices that the guy funding the "stop socialism" ads is the same guy who was handed the keys to the federal government and used them to fire tens of thousands of workers. The audacity is, at minimum, consistent.
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