Elon Musk continues to spend pro-Trump while Harris continues to dominate the money race, new documents show

CNN
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Elon Musk invested nearly $44 million in October in a super PAC working on the recovery Donald Trump to the White House — bringing the billionaire’s total donations to the group he founded on behalf of the former president to nearly $119 million, new campaign finance reports show.

The last-minute spree of spending by the world’s richest man comes as Trump’s Democratic rival is vice president Kamala Harrisstays shot the former president in fundraising, which raised about $97 million — six times the amount Trump raised in the first 16 days of October, according to reports the campaigns filed with the Federal Election Commission late Thursday night.

But both the candidates and their political operations have been on a spending spree this month, collectively burning more than half a billion dollars in the first half of October as they seek advantage in the run-up to Election Day.

Here are some key takeaways from the submitted documents:

Harris’ main campaign committee spent nearly $166 million between October 1 and 16, more than the Trump campaign’s $99.7 million in spending during the same period. About $130 million of Harris’ campaign spending went to media expenses.

And the blistering pace Harris set after rising to the top of the Democratic ticket in late July has given her a bigger financial cushion in the final days of the race. The nearly $119 million remaining in her campaign coffers is more than three times the dollars Trump had left in his.

And data from AdImpact, which tracks political ads, underscores how Harris has leveraged that financial advantage on air in battleground states. Her campaign has since spent about $488 million on ads President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, including on ads planned for Election Day. By contrast, Trump spent about $284 million during the same period.

Musk also helps Trump and the Republican candidates in the Senate

Musk has emerged as one important financial figure in this year’s election — endorsing an unorthodox effort to vote on Trump’s behalf in key battleground states — a role the former president has largely ceded to outside groups. In recent days, Musk has also offered splashy, $1 million daily sweepstakes to swing-state voters who have under scrutiny by the US Department of Justice.

The new documents show that the tech mogul made four donations totaling $43.6 million to his America PAC in the first half of October. He also wrote checks totaling $12.3 million to other super PACs, mainly in support of Republicans’ efforts to take control of the Senate.

Before this election, Tesla’s CEO and X owner had made relatively modest donations to federal candidates, supporting a mix of Democrats and Republicans. But he is deeply involved in helping Trump win the presidency this time and has joined the Republican candidate on the campaign trail.

Thursday’s filings show Musk’s super PAC attracted other donors in October. Billionaire businessman Nelson Peltz donated $1 million to America PAC and members of the Michigan-based DeVos family, including Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, also made six-figure donations.

Other major donors backing Trump include Midwestern packaging magnate Richard Uihlein, who this month contributed another $6.5 million to the super PAC he controls — Restoration PAC, which has spent heavily in support of Trump’s candidacy Trump. Uihlein, whose family helped found Schlitz Brewing, has long supported conservative, anti-establishment candidates and has emerged this cycle as one of the biggest backers of the pro-Trump effort.

Uihlein’s wife, Elizabeth, donated $3 million in October to another pro-Trump group, Preserve America, which was largely funded by billionaire Miriam Adelson, a doctor and widow of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. Ronald Cameron, who oversees poultry producing giant Mountaire Farms, donated $2 million to Preserve America.

WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum, meanwhile, became one of the latest tech figures to back Trump’s campaign, donating $5 million worth of stock in social media giant Meta to Make America Great Again, Inc., the main super PAC backing Trump. show the new files. He had previously donated to a super PAC supporting Nikki Haley’s failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

MAGA, Inc. also took $1 million apiece from Arkansas-based investor Warren Stephens and pharmaceutical heir Woody Johnson, who co-owns the New York Jets and served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Major donors to Future Forward, a super PAC backing Harris, include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, who donated $25 million to the group in the first half of October, bringing his total donation to the group to $38 million.

But a significant portion of the nearly $90 million the pro-Harris super PAC raised over the period — a total of $40 million — came from Future Forward’s nonprofit, which does not publicly disclose its donors, leaving the identities of some of them remain hidden from the public. Harris’ base.

This is also evident from the new files Liz Cheneythe former Wyoming congresswoman who broke with her fellow Republicans to support Harris isn’t just campaigning with the vice president. Cheney’s political action committee, Our Great Task, on Oct. 8 donated $2.5 million to American Bridge 21st Century, a leading Democratic investigative and rapid response group working to help Harris.

Even as Trump raises money for his presidential campaign, his political operation continues to support the former president’s legal bills.

Between Oct. 1 and Oct. 16, the former president’s leadership PAC, Save America, spent $3.9 million on “legal advice,” records show. The lion’s share of the money, almost $3.3 million, went to Robert & Robert. Clifford Robert, the firm’s director, is one of the lawyers representing Trump in his law firm appealed against his judgment on civil fraud in New York.