SpaceX and Tesla have high election stakes as Elon Musk pours $366 million into campaigns — SkimNews
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- Elon Musk has committed $366 million to the 2026 election cycle across at least 40 races, making him the midterms’ largest individual donor, with $276 million going to Republican groups and his own America PAC since July.
- SpaceX has secured $6.78 billion in federal contracts through October 2026, nearly double its 2024 total, including $2.29 billion from the Space Force for a military communications network and $4.16 billion for threat-detection satellites.
- America PAC, Musk’s political operation, is spending heavily in battleground states including $8.9 million in Ohio, $7.2 million in Michigan, and $2 million in Maine, backing GOP candidates who support favorable policies on data centers and AI.
- Tesla and SpaceX are planning a $30 billion AI chip factory with Intel in Grimes County, Texas, where Musk’s longtime lawyer Chris Gober is running for Congress, highlighting the overlap between Musk’s business and political interests.
- Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, is being backed by America PAC, giving Musk potential influence over funding bills for NASA and the Pentagon, which are major SpaceX customers.
- Musk previously spent nearly $300 million to help elect Trump and Republicans in 2024, gaining access to the administration and leading DOGE’s federal workforce cuts, but later faced threats to his government contracts during a policy feud in June 2025.
Why it matters: Musk’s unprecedented political spending directly aligns with his companies’ reliance on federal contracts and regulatory outcomes—SpaceX has already pulled in $6.78 billion in 2026, and Tesla faces pivotal decisions on EV policy and AI oversight. If Democrats gain power, investigations into Musk’s businesses could follow, altering the trajectory of his empire.
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