Texas Senate candidate Paxton is being outspent by millions. Then the world’s richest man writes two checks for $158 million to save him
Vested interests.
Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest individual, has injected a staggering $158 million into the Texas U.S. Senate race, providing a massive financial rescue for Republican candidate Ken Paxton. This huge cash infusion to the Senate GOP’s main outside group has completely transformed the campaign, allowing Republicans to dominate the airwaves with ads boosting Paxton after he had been outspent for months by his Democratic opponent, James Talarico.
According to The Texas Tribune, new campaign finance reports, filed on October 15, 2026, revealed that Musk was the driving force behind this advertising blitz. He appears to have poured nearly $190 million into the U.S. Senate race in his adopted home state of Texas. His crucial role in funding Paxton’s air support came through donations to the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), which is the Senate GOP’s primary super PAC and the top spender in this Texas contest.
On September 9, the first day of the GOP midterm convention in Dallas, Musk gave $75 million to SLF. The next day, SLF deposited that $75 million into a new entity called Texas PAC. A weekend after the convention, Texas PAC was already running positive ads about Paxton’s work on sex trafficking and negative ads attacking Talarico. Two weeks after that initial check, Musk provided another $83 million to SLF. SLF deposited that entire $83 million into Texas PAC’s coffers the following day.
This substantial investment armed Senate Republicans
It allowed them to take control of the advertising landscape in Texas. Utilizing Texas PAC as its vehicle for booking airtime, SLF has already spent over $159 million on TV, radio, and digital advertising. That’s double the amount spent by Talarico’s campaign, according to media tracking firm AdImpact.
Before Musk’s intervention, Paxton’s campaign and allied groups like Lone Star Liberty PAC were in a tough spot financially. Lone Star Liberty PAC, which was the main outside group boosting Paxton, had only $35,000 in the bank by the end of June after draining its funds on Paxton’s hard-fought primary win.
Meanwhile, Talarico was on a fundraising tear, pulling in a record $64 million between July and September, which is a third-quarter record for any U.S. Senate candidate. This meant Talarico was set to keep dominating ad spending until help arrived for Paxton.
Musk’s involvement actually began earlier
The tech mogul’s political team reached out to SLF to express concerns about Paxton’s standing in the race. This led to an agreement where Musk would provide $10 million to Lone Star Liberty PAC if SLF contributed $5 million and the PAC raised an additional $5 million.
This earlier windfall helped Lone Star Liberty PAC spend $17.5 million on broadcast TV advertising in early September, which was the most significant pro-Paxton ad buy of the general election at that time. By the end of September, various outside groups, led by SLF, had collectively spent over $217 million on ads in the Texas Senate race.
Paxton hasn’t publicly commented on Musk’s direct support. However, in the past, the attorney general has praised Musk for backing Republicans. Paxton once spoke about spending hours at Musk’s home, hearing him recount his efforts to boost GOP candidates. “Aren’t you all glad he’s on our side?” Paxton said at an event, adding, “I am convinced that whatever he did, whatever rocket science thing he did, made a huge difference in this election.”
Paxton has also aligned himself with Musk through his role as Texas AG, largely avoiding scrutiny of Musk’s companies while his office has increasingly targeted other Big Tech firms. For example, in 2022, when Musk was trying to buy Twitter, Paxton opened an investigation into the social media company regarding its reporting of fake or bot accounts, mirroring Musk’s own questions at the time.
Musk eventually bought Twitter and rebranded it as X. Similarly, in 2024, Paxton investigated the World Federation of Advertisers to see if its members were conspiring to boycott social media services, likely including Musk’s X, which had filed an antitrust suit against the group.
Despite these actions, critics have accused Paxton of ignoring X and Musk
In January, a group of Democratic state representatives demanded that the AG investigate X’s artificial intelligence agent, Grok, for allegedly creating exploitative content about children and women. Paxton did not publicly respond to this letter. That same month, a group of attorneys general from across the country sent a letter to Musk’s company demanding action on its AI agent’s creation of child sex abuse content, but Paxton was not among the signatories.
Musk’s political operation isn’t just focused on the Senate race; it’s deeply involved in the Republican ground game across Texas, supporting various key races from canvassing to mailers. His America PAC, which he seeded with nearly $90 million last quarter, has injected $18.8 million into the Senate race for efforts like text messaging, mailers, and ads, with over 80% of that money going toward anti-Talarico messaging.
It makes sense that Musk is so invested in Texas politics, given his significant business interests there. He’s moved the state of incorporation for many of his companies to Texas in recent years. Boring Company and X are headquartered in Bastrop, SpaceX is near Brownsville, and Tesla’s corporate headquarters is now in Austin.
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
Follow The Mary Sue:
