Musk has started spending money to help Ken Paxton. Will it help change the course of the Texas Senate race?

For months, Texas Republicans have anxiously awaited the arrival of national resources to help boost Ken Paxton , one of the GOP’s most vulnerable Senate candidates.

Now, Elon Musk , the world’s richest person, has entered the scene, this week disclosing the first spending from his super PAC to benefit Paxton and raising GOP hopes that the floodgates soon will open wide to help the Texas attorney general overcome a deep financial deficit with his Democratic rival James Talarico. Other groups, including a super PAC associated with Sen. Ted Cruz, also have begun to step up their activity on Paxton’s behalf.

Musk’s America PAC, however, stands apart because it is largely funded by the billionaire himself who has become one of the biggest individual donors shaping US politics — and a major player in Texas politics specifically.

With its activity, the PAC has signaled the Texas contest is one of its priorities as it plans massive spending to shape the outcome of the midterms. One person who has spoken to the group in Texas says they are hiring for what they believe to be an expansive turnout operation in the state.

Officials with the Musk super PAC have not disclosed how much they intend to spend to aid Paxton’s bid. But Texas Republican operatives who are not involved with America PAC said it makes sense that Musk, who has made Texas the base of his growing corporate empire, would want to go all in for Paxton.

“The business interests, the long-term investment that he is making, the Musk operation politically does not need to have a Democrat in their backyard,” said Matt Langston, a GOP strategist in the state. “They will invest. They will get involved in a big way.”

PAC officials indicated that political rather than business considerations are driving their decision-making.

In a statement to CNN, America PAC spokesman Andrew Romeo said the Musk group “is working in full coordination with the entire GOP apparatus and investing in the states and districts that will decide control of the House and Senate.”

“Our only priority is ensuring Republicans keep full control of Washington and stopping the lunatic left from bringing us back to the days of open borders, rampant crime and woke policies.”

CNN also has reached out to Paxton’s campaign for comment.

Musk has deep ties to Texas, relocating several of his businesses’ headquarters to the state. Tesla and SpaceX are part of a joint venture developing Terafab , a massive chipmaking factory outside Houston.

As attorney general, Paxton launched an investigation of advertising boycotts on platforms such as X, several months after Musk sued a group of advertisers and major companies accusing them of illegally conspiring to pull their ads from X.

But Musk’s allies also have sparred in court with Paxton over his orders that certain records tied to operations of Starbase, the recently incorporated Texas town that is home to SpaceX, must be publicly released under the state’s open records law.

Musk said during a radio interview with Gov. Greg Abbott in July that he “love(s)” Texas and its friendly business climate.

“It’s a great state to do business in. It’s super supportive and, I think, really emblematic of American values,” Musk told Abbott, who was filling in for radio host Sean Hannity. “I love being here and I love being a Texan.”

Musk has deepened his political ties to Texas in other ways this election cycle.

He has given $3 million to Texans for Lawsuit Reform, the state’s powerful tort reform group. He has also donated $2 million to the Judicial Fairness PAC, which works to elect GOP candidates for judicial positions. And he has made six-figure contributions to each of the state’s top three leaders: Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and state House Speaker Dustin Burrows.

Meanwhile, one of his lawyers, Chris Gober, is on track to join Congress next year. Gober won a Republican primary in March for an open House seat in Central Texas that strongly favors the GOP.

Some Republicans have voiced frustration that the cost of defending a Senate seat in deep-red Texas skyrocketed after the controversial Paxton toppled incumbent GOP Sen. John Cornyn in the primary, aided by President Donald Trump’s endorsement.

Democrats need a net gain of just four seats to flip the US Senate.

Paxton has confronted an array of scandals in recent years, including a 2023 impeachment by the Texas House of Representatives over allegations of bribery and corruption. He was later acquitted of all the charges by the state Senate.

Sergio Flores/Getty Images

Republican leaders are openly calling for Trump to deploy some of the roughly $400 million sitting in his MAGA Inc. war chest to help Paxton.

“I think all of our allies out there, including the president and his team and their resources, need to be brought to bear on Texas,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said on Fox News earlier this week.

Officials with MAGA Inc. have consistently declined to telegraph the super PAC’s midterm strategy. In remarks Friday, Trump indicated that he planned to direct some of his cash reserves to “people that I think are good Republicans” and “can win or are closing to winning.”

Paxton’s side, however, is getting more help on the airwaves now, after weeks of lagging behind his rival.

Republican outside groups, led by the pro-Paxton Lone Star Liberty PAC, are spending a combined $11 million on advertising this week, swamping the roughly $4 million coming from Talarico’s campaign, according to data from AdImpact, which tracks political commercials.

That’s in sharp contrast to August when Democrats spent $13.3 million in advertising in the race to Republicans’ $4.7 million.

James Dickey, a former Texas Republican Party chairman who now runs a government affairs firm, insists that the money concerns swirling around Paxton’s candidacy are overblown, pointing to several well-funded Democrats who have tried and fail to win statewide office in Texas in recent years.

“History is replete with examples that money is necessary but not sufficient to win an election,” he said. “There is no reason to believe that Attorney General Paxton will not have enough funds.”

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/File

On Thursday night, the Musk PAC reported spending roughly $840,000 to benefit 15 House and Senate candidates, a modest sum that is expected to grow dramatically in the weeks ahead, given Musk’s commitment to help Republicans retain control of Congress during Trump’s final two years in office.

Nearly $250,000 of the sum backed Paxton, the biggest share of America PAC’s first tranche of candidate-focused spending, but those proportions could change as the committee ramps up its spending.

On Friday night, the group disclosed spending another $2.9 million on midterm races, nearly half of it going toward the contest in Texas.

The early Musk money across congressional races has gone to printing expenses, signaling its use for direct outreach to voters in the form of mailings or other political literature.

Separately, America PAC also invested in digital advertising in key battlegrounds, although that spending has focused on boosting registration among targeted voters, rather than advocating for individual candidates. One such ad tells Facebook users in Texas that “your state could flip control of the Senate” and encourages them to check their registration status now.

America PAC’s new burst of activity marks a significant Musk reengagement with Republicans, more than a year after the billionaire broke with Trump and threatened to start his own political party. He has since reconciled with the president, and the third-party idea fizzled.

Republicans say they are eager to see the billionaire spend big across the country but privately hope he maintains a lower profile during the fall campaign. His brief tenure overseeing the federal Department of Government Efficiency made him a household name and a villain among a federal workforce affected by the DOGE cuts.

“I think he has learned a lot from his experience at DOGE,” said one Republican strategist involved in the midterms who believes Musk will remain more in the background this fall. The person also praised Musk’s political team — headed by a Chris Young, an experienced operative who directed the PAC’s 2024 effort — as “real pros.”

In the 2024 election, Musk spent nearly $300 million boosting Trump and Republicans, much of it aimed at building a ground game in key battlegrounds to turn out voters. But his high-profile effort last year to flip majority control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court backfired. The Republican he supported lost by 10 percentage points to the Democrat.

“I think I got a little too involved in politics. I got carried away, frankly,” Musk said during a July interview with The Economist, reflecting on his DOGE tenure.

Democrats say they will respond to the expected fundraising onslaught by seeking to make Musk a lightning rod in battleground races.

“Elon Musk is toxic and one of the most unpopular figures in America,” CJ Warnke, communications director for House Majority PAC, the main House Democratic super PAC, told CNN. “As we saw in Wisconsin in 2025, he will be a drag on any Republican campaign this fall.”

That strategy was already on display this week.

A day after the first spending disclosures by Musk’s PAC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blasted out a news release, singling out several House Republicans benefiting from Musk’s money. Republican lawmakers, it said, were relying on billionaire donors “to rescue them.”

CNN’s David Wright contributed to this report.

几个月来，德克萨斯州的共和党人一直焦急地等待着国家资源的到来，以帮助肯·帕克斯顿（Ken Paxton）——共和党最脆弱的参议院候选人之一——提升选情。

如今，世界首富埃隆·马斯克也加入了这场角逐。本周，他披露了其超级政治行动委员会首次拨款支持帕克斯顿，这让共和党人燃起了希望，他们期待着更多资金能够涌入，帮助这位德克萨斯州总检察长克服与民主党对手詹姆斯·塔拉里科之间巨大的竞选资金差距。其他一些团体，包括与参议员特德·克鲁兹相关的超级政治行动委员会，也开始加大力度支持帕克斯顿。

然而，马斯克的美国政治行动委员会却与众不同，因为它主要由这位亿万富翁本人资助，他已成为影响美国政治的最大个人捐助者之一，尤其是在德克萨斯州的政治中扮演着重要角色。

该政治行动委员会的种种举动表明，德克萨斯州的选举是其重点关注的领域之一，他们计划投入巨资以左右中期选举的结果。一位曾与该组织在德克萨斯州接触过的人士透露，他们正在招募人员，准备在该州开展大规模的选民动员活动。

马斯克超级政治行动委员会的官员尚未透露他们计划花费多少资金来支持帕克斯顿的竞选。但一些与“美国政治行动委员会”（America PAC）无关的德克萨斯州共和党人士表示，马斯克已将德克萨斯州作为其不断扩张的商业帝国的基地，因此他全力支持帕克斯顿是合情合理的。

“从商业利益和长期投资的角度来看，马斯克的运营并不需要民主党人在其选区内掌权，”该州共和党策略师马特·兰斯顿表示。“他们会投资，他们会深度参与。”

政治行动委员会官员表示，他们的决策是由政治因素而非商业因素驱动的。

美国政治行动委员会发言人安德鲁·罗密欧在给 CNN 的一份声明中表示，马斯克的团队“正在与整个共和党机构全面协调合作，并投资于将决定众议院和参议院控制权的州和选区”。

“我们唯一的首要任务是确保共和党人继续完全掌控华盛顿，并阻止疯狂的左派把我们带回开放边境、犯罪猖獗和觉醒政策盛行的时代。”

CNN也已联系帕克斯顿竞选团队寻求置评。

马斯克与德克萨斯州有着深厚的渊源，他将旗下多家公司的总部迁至该州。特斯拉和SpaceX共同成立了一家合资企业，在休斯顿郊外开发大型芯片制造工厂Terafab。

作为司法部长，帕克斯顿对 X 等平台上的广告抵制活动展开了调查。此前几个月，马斯克起诉了一群广告商和大公司，指控他们非法串谋，将广告从 X 平台撤下。

但马斯克的盟友也曾与帕克斯顿在法庭上就此展开争论，帕克斯顿下令必须根据德克萨斯州的公开记录法公开与星际基地（SpaceX 的所在地，最近成立的德克萨斯州小镇）运营相关的某些记录。

马斯克在7月份接受德克萨斯州州长格雷格·阿博特的电台采访时表示，他“热爱”德克萨斯州及其友好的营商环境。

“德克萨斯州是经商的好地方。这里对企业给予了极大的支持，而且我认为，它真正体现了美国的价值观，”马斯克告诉代班主持电台节目的阿博特州长（肖恩·汉尼提的主持人）。“我喜欢待在这里，我热爱做一名德州人。”

在本届选举周期中，马斯克还以其他方式加深了与德克萨斯州的政治联系。

他向德克萨斯州强大的侵权法改革组织“德州诉讼改革联盟”（Texans for Lawsuit Reform）捐赠了300万美元。他还向致力于支持共和党候选人竞选法官职位的“司法公平政治行动委员会”（Judicial Fairness PAC）捐赠了200万美元。此外，他还向该州的三位最高领导人——州长阿博特、副州长丹·帕特里克和州众议院议长达斯汀·伯罗斯——分别捐赠了数十万美元。

与此同时，他的律师之一克里斯·戈贝尔有望明年进入国会。戈贝尔在三月份的共和党初选中获胜，将代表德克萨斯州中部一个共和党占绝对优势的众议院席位参选。

一些共和党人表示不满，因为在唐纳德·特朗普总统的支持下，颇具争议的帕克斯顿在初选中击败了现任共和党参议员约翰·科宁，导致在深红州德克萨斯州保住参议院席位的成本飙升。

民主党只需净增四个席位即可翻转美国参议院。

近年来，帕克斯顿遭遇了一系列丑闻，其中包括2023年德克萨斯州众议院因其受贿和腐败指控而发起的弹劾。后来，州参议院宣布他所有指控均不成立。

Sergio Flores/Getty Images

共和党领导人公开呼吁特朗普动用其“让美国再次伟大”竞选资金库中约 4 亿美元的一部分来帮助帕克斯顿。

“我认为我们需要动用所有盟友的力量，包括总统及其团队和他们的资源，来帮助德克萨斯州，”参议院多数党领袖约翰·图恩本周早些时候在福克斯新闻上表示。

MAGA Inc.的官员一直拒绝透露该超级政治行动委员会的中期选举策略。特朗普在周五的讲话中表示，他计划将部分资金投入到“我认为是优秀的共和党人”以及“能够赢得选举或即将赢得选举的人”身上。

然而，在落后对手数周之后，帕克斯顿一方现在在广播方面得到了更多支持。

据追踪政治广告的 AdImpact 数据显示，以支持帕克斯顿的 Lone Star Liberty PAC 为首的共和党外部团体本周共花费 1100 万美元用于广告宣传，远远超过了塔拉里科竞选团队约 400 万美元的投入。

这与 8 月份形成了鲜明对比，当时民主党在竞选广告上花费了 1330 万美元，而共和党只花费了 470 万美元。

曾任德克萨斯州共和党主席、现经营政府事务公司的詹姆斯·迪基坚称，围绕帕克斯顿竞选资金的担忧被夸大了，并指出近年来有好几位资金雄厚的民主党人试图在德克萨斯州赢得全州公职，但都以失败告终。

他说：“历史充满了这样的例子，金钱固然是赢得选举的必要条件，但并非充分条件。没有理由相信帕克斯顿总检察长会面临资金不足的问题。”

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/文件

周四晚间，马斯克政治行动委员会报告称，已花费约 84 万美元资助 15 位众议院和参议院候选人。鉴于马斯克致力于帮助共和党在特朗普执政的最后两年内保住国会的控制权，这笔金额虽然不大，但预计在未来几周内将大幅增长。

近 25 万美元用于支持帕克斯顿，这是美国政治行动委员会 (America PAC) 第一批以候选人为中心的支出中的最大份额，但随着该委员会加大支出力度，这些比例可能会发生变化。

周五晚上，该组织披露将在中期选举中再花费 290 万美元，其中近一半将用于德克萨斯州的选举。

马斯克早期在国会竞选中投入的资金主要用于印刷费用，这表明这些资金将用于以邮件或其他政治宣传材料的形式直接接触选民。

此外，美国政治行动委员会（America PAC）也在关键摇摆州投资了数字广告，但这些支出主要集中在提高目标选民的登记率，而非为个别候选人站台。其中一则广告告诉德克萨斯州的Facebook用户，“你们州可能会改变参议院的控制权”，并鼓励他们立即查看自己的选民登记状态。

美国政治行动委员会（America PAC）的这波新一轮活跃标志着马斯克与共和党人的重新密切接触。此前一年多，这位亿万富翁曾与特朗普决裂，并威胁要组建自己的政党。此后，他与特朗普和解，组建第三方政党的想法也随之破灭。

共和党人表示，他们渴望看到这位亿万富翁在全国各地大手笔投入竞选活动，但私下里希望他在秋季竞选期间保持低调。他曾短暂担任联邦政府效率部（DOGE）部长，这使他家喻户晓，也让他成为受DOGE预算削减影响的联邦政府雇员眼中的“反派”。

一位参与中期选举的共和党策略师表示：“我认为他从在狗狗币公司的经历中学到了很多。”这位策略师认为，马斯克今年秋季会更加低调。他还称赞马斯克的政治团队——由经验丰富的克里斯·杨领导，杨曾负责该政治行动委员会2024年的竞选活动——是“真正的专业人士”。

在2024年大选中，马斯克花费了近3亿美元支持特朗普和共和党，其中大部分资金用于在关键摇摆州建立地面竞选活动，以争取选民支持。但他去年高调试图扭转威斯康星州最高法院多数席位的努力却适得其反。他支持的共和党候选人最终以10个百分点的差距败给了民主党候选人。

“坦白说，我觉得我有点太投入政治了，有点得意忘形了。”马斯克在7月接受《经济学人》采访时回顾他担任狗狗币（DOGE）期间的经历时说道。

民主党人表示，他们将通过让马斯克成为关键摇摆州选战中的焦点人物来应对预期的筹款攻势。

“埃隆·马斯克是个极具争议的人物，也是美国最不受欢迎的人物之一，”众议院民主党超级政治行动委员会“众议院多数党政治行动委员会”（House Majority PAC）的通讯主管CJ Warnke告诉CNN。“正如我们在2025年威斯康星州的选举中所看到的，他将成为今年秋季任何共和党竞选活动的绊脚石。”

这一策略在本周就已经有所体现。

在马斯克的政治行动委员会首次披露支出情况的第二天，民主党国会竞选委员会发布新闻稿，点名批评了几位接受马斯克捐款的众议院共和党议员。新闻稿称，这些共和党议员正依靠亿万富翁捐助者“来拯救他们”。

CNN的戴维·赖特对本报道亦有贡献。