Musk gave the money to Super-PACs which immediately gave it all to Paxton.
Here’s a Cool $158 Million
The Wall Street Journal reports Elon Musk Pours a Fortune Into Saving Texas for Republicans
According to federal filings, Musk donated $158 million to Senate Republicans’ super PAC in September—the same amount that was immediately funneled to a group backing Republican Ken Paxton’s Senate bid.
The new disclosures show that Musk, the world’s richest person, is behind much of the money that has been pumped into the Texas Senate race to help keep Paxton financially competitive as his Democratic opponent James Talarico has significantly outraised him throughout the race.
Musk is a Texas resident and has several companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, based in the Lone Star State.
In September, Musk sent two large donations to the Senate Leadership Fund, Senate Republicans’ main super PAC.
On Sept. 9, the first day of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Musk funneled $75 million to SLF. The following day, the super PAC moved $75 million into a connected entity named Texas PAC. Two weeks later, Musk gave $83 million to SLF—and again, the following day, the group sent the same amount to Texas PAC, which is the biggest advertiser in the Texas contest, according to AdImpact data.
And in August, he also gave $10 million to Lone Star Liberty PAC, a super PAC boosting Paxton.
Overall, Musk gave more than $250 million to Republican-aligned groups in the third quarter, campaign-finance filings show. Among that was $89 million he gave to his own America PAC.
Going into the midterms, Republicans had a money advantage over Democrats. They have been throwing hundreds of millions of dollars into races across the country. Still, polls haven’t shown significant shifts in high-profile contests since more money started pumping in.
Money Can’t Buy Me Votes
The Beatles wrote a song about votes. It goes like this.
Can’t buy me votes, ev’rybody tells me so.
Can’t buy me votes, no, no, no, no.‘Cause I don’t care too much for money,
Money can’t buy me votes.
Press Secretary Ousted After Five Days
The New York Times reports Katie Zacharia Is Ousted After 5 Days as White House Press Secretary
President Trump’s new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, was forced out Friday, after less than a week on the job, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the decision, which was not yet announced. Ms. Zacharia did not respond to requests for comment. But Mr. Trump told reporters on Friday that he had encouraged Ms. Zacharia to “reconsider” the job.
“Honestly, if I were you, I’d reconsider,” he told reporters, recounting his conversation with his press secretary. He said he added: “Katie, do you need this? I don’t think you need this.”
He said Ms. Zacharia might continue to work for him “in some form, but maybe a more pleasant form.”
New Record
Check out her first press conference.
I did not think we would ever see anything as bad as Biden’s press secretary, but I was wrong.
She lasted five days.
The Apparent Mystery
The apparent mystery is not that she was fired in record time, but how the hell she was ever hired in the first place.
The key skill of a CEO is the ability to discern and hire good people — no CEO can do everything. Yet, he plainly hires people based on family connections and women based on physical appearance, without any legitimate reason.
Not that any further proof was needed, but this appointment alone is sufficient to kill any pretense that Trump was a great businessman.
The White Hair
“The white hair and a big strong guy. That’s what I want.”
The Name Game
Texas Polymarket
Split Ticket Texas Senate
The Split Ticket model, based on polls, gives Talarico a 72 percent chance.
Nate Silver gives Talarico a 71 percent chance in his Deluxe model and 68 percent in his Classic and Lite models.
An Insider Advantage poll released today has Paxton up by 1. An ActiVote poll released yesterday has Talarico up by 4.
As a result, my assessment is down a bit today to ~65 percent for Talarico.
I Voted Today
What About Musk?
I find Musk’s attempt to buy an election with hundreds of millions of dollars disgusting. I would say the same thing if the money was going the other way.
But disgusting or not, the Constitution protects Musk’s right to donate money to whoever he wants, including pedophile-protecting, morally bankrupt, crooked politicians like Paxton.
Fundamentally, it’s his money. As a Libertarian, I have to say that people should be able to do what they want with their money.
The best we can do is hope it backfires. And I think it will.
Related Posts
October 11, 2026: Trafalgar Group Has Talarico 3.5 Points Ahead in Texas Senate Race
Also, there’s another favorable poll for Democrats in Maine.
October 13, 2026: Ken Paxton Partied in Dubai With Fugitives Ahead of Texas Senate Race
Two US citizens indicted for fraud partied with Paxton. They made huge donations.
October 15, 2026: Who Is Favored to Win the Senate in 6 Different Models
Here are 10 Senate races in 6 models, one of them mine.
Can’t stand the dems but the GOP won’t learn unless it experiences a bloodbath next month. I want the christian wingnuts, Israel-firsters, Wall $treet apologists and neocons purged.
Grok must have told him it was the best value play for his money.
Members of the Epstein class scratch each others ‘ backs.
A Musk endorsement is the kiss of death. No one but Tesla buying sycophants likes the guy.
I suspect the way his stocks hold traction is that he’s got enough money to buy out every major analyst and financial firm. Yipee, flying cars is the next scam he’ll take years to never deliver on.
Press Secretary Ousted: this shows a new decay in Trump’s focus and skills. I was impressed by Trump’s past quick grasp of good casting of camera-ready characters. With exceptions; there were errors (Sean Spicer, Scaramucci), sure. But honed in on looks and presentation skills with an inborn talent. Often he picked this up off TV appearances, as here.
But this Katie person was ridiculous at a glance. She looked and sounded like a cheap Temu version of he Mar-a-Lago-faced Stepford-Barbie women he collected, like a fem-bot that was ill-cast in the plastic mold, and glitching from the start. She wilted in the job. It is bandied around that there is an attempted coup at the WH chief of staff level. Maybe the wear and tear are finally catching up to Trump. .
There are reports that Trump went around his Chief of Staff, who was purportedly supporting Scott Jennings.
I appreciate Mish’s expression of principle here. I will always prefer a principles-based argument to PR fluff and noise, even if that noise’s conclusions fit with mine, I do have a Constiitution-era rejoinder though, which I believe is in the deeper spirit and intent, so, impliedly, if not in the explicit letter of the Constitution:
In Federalist No. 10, James Madison (I consider the principle author of the Constitution and Bill of Rights) wrote about the dynamics of factions (individuals or groups with a particular interest, that can threaten the rights of others and the common good). He argued that while the causes of factions cannot be removed without sacrificing liberty, their effects can be controlled through a well-constructed republic.
A dominant design concept of the time was the Enlightenment view of the universe as embodying a sort of balancing clockwork (see, e.g., Isaac Newton). Madison, in my reading, sought to engage factions, interested parties, in governance, but to balance them off each other, as with balancing rights and duties for good but dynamic order: within limits. No right or liberty is unlimited. Hamilton similarly wanted to engage the rich, but not give hem outright imperial power in the system. This is a balancing process.
I think in this light, there would be a view of Musk having broken out of the equilibria involved, as a whole new sort of level on the food chain, so to speak, a new concentration of private power that is punching through other boundaries and rights, borders and norms.
So I.believe government could and should allow, but set some limit on this sort of single-sourced spending..
As a Reformed Libertarian, where liberty is my highest political value, I deeply disagree with Mish’s view of Musk’s use of personal wealth to influence government. The primary role of government must be to protect individual liberty. But, in order to do that, government must be an ethical 3rd party to the economic life of Americans. Allowing a free-for-all of wealthy people working to corrupt that fundamental principle is anti-liberty and is the fundamental issue with the poor performance of the government in the USA.
Elon Musk is wealthy because he conned Peter Thiel into partnering with him to make a monopolistic Paypal. Since then, he has used his wealth to get the government to force us into paying him for things we weren’t willing to pay for: Tesla and SpaceX subsidies, increasing his wealth which he continues to use to strip away our liberty.
Musk’s wealth comes at the expense of individual American’s liberty.
100% agree. Although I’d describe reformed libertarians as people who spent 10 minutes thinking about the outcome of Libertarianism and realising the flaws.
To me Libertarianism in the US is just lazy shorthand for not wanting to vote for the uni party. A very fair position but don’t dress it up in nonsense.
they must repeal citizens united
Just on of the many things wrong with the US constitution.
..and sorry to say Mish a perfect example of why Libertarianism would never work.
Libertarianism is an ideology of the rich, so it works quite fine for them.
Time to boycott Tesla, Space X etc.
Sorry Mish. I dont think billionaires or trillionaires should be able to use their money to sway elections. Ideally all candidates would have the same amount of campaign money, so that democracy cam truly function.
He tried to buy a WI Supreme Court judge last year – to no avail.
The problem with money being free speech is those with more have a bigger voice to shout at dumb people. There is a reason republicans dont want finance reform/ social media guard rails. / ai guard rails/ and am band width in car radios.
Some things to consider
Current us population is 349 million. He donated 339 million this time around. Let that sink in.
Tesla paid zero income tax last year.
Musk has benefited from the government helping tesla yet tesla paid no income tax last year.
I think the very wealthy are not fleeing to fla / texas etc for tax purposes. I think they are moving because the law and judges are more friendly.
Maybe musk is deeper in the epstien files. Or he stands to really profit.
I wonder where we would be if we still had the pre Regan tax code. Ie no trickle down economics.
I dont have a problem with people having money.
Im doing ok but i worry about two things.
First when those very wealthy with political connections get finished wringing the money from the lower class. They will enact policies that will strip the middle class.
Second. When i leave my house and drive through my town i realize im a lot closer to the bottom than the top. Ie i cant afford a gated community / security guards and private jets. So im a bit concerned about the welfare of the bottom.
“Rich men have dreams. Poor men die to make them come true.”
― Glen Cook
I don’t pay much attention to polls these days with higher political volatility. The betting odds have been a lot closer…
Pollsters are paid by news organizations to make story lines for them. I find it funny that Talarico’s sudden rise in the polls corresponds with him disappearing from public eye from September 15th to September 24th. I guess if you cannot write about your favored candidate because he is MIA, you pay a dubious pollster to make up stories for you.
Trump goes dark all the time (for which many thanks). What’s your point? Ken Paxton loves pedophiles, has a droopy face that suggests he’s had several strokes and as about as corrupt and dirty politician that Texas ever produced – and it’s produced a lot of them. Win or lose Paxton will be off to Dubai partying with convicted fraudsters and sex pests.
Talarico had the flu and decided not to spread it around to his crew and unsuspecting bystanders. Why would he even care about these people? Who knows. Paxton wouldn’t give a damn.
If Musk would have invested that 150 million in DJT, the stock wouldn’t have hit its all time low today. Maybe Paxton’s a better investment?
Musk moved Tesla and other operations to Texas to bend its corporate law to his liking. That is working for him. He has his own gravity field of monetized influence. SpaceX got special treatment and lower financial standards allowed, to be IPO’d on Nasdaq. Rules bend now everywhere Musk touches. This is Musk’s long game.
Somebody tell Musk, for $100,000, I’ll put a Paxton sign up in my yard.
“A fool and his money are soon departed”
If you have $10,000 and I have $1, and you and I play poker, who is absolutely guaranteed to win?
Capital sticks to itself, militarizes, and becomes untouchable.
That’s not true. I have a terrible poker face and it would not be difficult for you
Btw, I just realized that the calendar for 1987 is the same as this year’s calendar. And Black Monday was Monday, October 19th!
A historian. Monday 19 Oct is day 42 of 42 of a SPX 29 July 2026 17/42/37 day :: xy/2-2.5xy/2-2.5xy fractal series ending 9 Dec 2026, self-similar to the Aug to 13 Nov 1929 12/27/29 day :: xy/2-2.5xy/2-2.5xy fractal series. At the end of the SPX 42 day second fractal on 19 Oct 2026 expect a nonlinear gapped lower low from 16 October’s close, but not to 1987’s extent.
this past week was a total meltdown on AI……..bubble. the biggest bubble since the 1873 RR bubble as percent of our economy. i’d expect the next few years to be a profound depression as a result. buckle up. and pack a lunch. it’s a long way down the mountain……….
Meanwhile, Gavin Newsom, whom the right-wingers stupidly describe as being to the left of Stalin, is trying to hire effing scabs to break the SEIU strike in California!
Yeah, sure – Lenin would have done that! LOL
you mean the first hubby of kimberly guilfoyle, is a scam artist ?
Yep. As someone said, “It’s a big club, and we ain’t in it!”
oh we are in it. 95% keep voting for the uniparty warmongering cunts. democracy works. everyone seems to not understand that ancient truth. assholes vote for assholes.
The underlying logic chip, to survive and reproduce, was installed in all living entities, long before all that. It instills an absolute conflict of interest in all interactions. Humans are rapacious, full stop. The funny part is the pretense they are steeped in: they are so funny in their lurid false mirrors.
A few proposed vaguely credible ways to mitigate this: mostly honored in the breach.
Public elections and unlimited private financing by the wealthy is not a democracy or a republic due to policy outcomes that almost solely benefits the upper class.
Prima facie is the Powell Memo in the 70s and the incremental skewing of the wealth and income divide that has devolved into today’s oligopolistic economy that funds campaigns by plutocrats to kleptocrats to do the wealthy’s bidding.
Billionaires and multi-millionaires whether from country club GOP, new wealth, or corporate Democrats, exacerbates corruption. The people should’ve recognized this from the Gilded Age, the 1920s, Nixon’s Watergate, the political and economic scandals in the 80s, 90s, Bush Jr.’s doubling down on tax cuts, deregulation, war profiteering, Obama’s sop to the financial, insurance and real estate sectors, more wars, to more tax cuts under both Trump presidencies, more wars, more deregulation.
I don’t think it is ok for billionaires and the top .1 and 1 percent to do whatever they want with their money when it bankrupts the nation slowly, we get endless wars, education is gutted, housing becomes unaffordable, medical coverage is determined by your economic class, or employer, or if you belong to union, etc.
What ails America is directly linked to the Lewis Powell Memo.
the highest and best return on capital is feudalism. i learned that in economics study decades ago. also kids, face facts, this empire was created from the beginning to be an oligarchy. the bullshit they teach in public schools is for the middlebrows and lumpenproles to lap up. we learned this from growing up in a hood where all the fathers and uncles…….worked on wall street. i actually find it amusing how naive so many amerikans truly are.
Every society from the epoch of hunter-gatherer to a surplus agriculture city-state, that matures to the trading of commodities, innovation, diffusion, mutation, supply chains, finance, the rise of empires, war, conquest, plunder, societal collapse a resurrection then rinse and repeat requires organization, an ideology supporting how society is organized, laws and enforcement a general consensus until a new ideology manifests itself that captures the imagination of another organized society or from within a society.
From Çatalhöyük through today elites or a rising class run the state. However, it is a society and it’s leaders that recognizes that education, merit, justice, equality of opportunity, investment can lead to security, freedom and peace if properly administered.
To argue that feudalism or today’s neo-feudalism is the way of the world is to ignore history. The US founding shook off a monarchy and a Parliament through revolution and substituted it with elites and middle class business, political and cultural leadership. Was it flawed from the outset? Yes. There are no utopias. Whatever Homo sapiens spawns has defects.
I would suggest a reading of Aristotle’s Ethics and his Politics might lead you to a different conclusion since he discusses all forms of government, the excesses they produce, the mean or virtue and the histories how monarchy, aristocracy and the polity are the the mean but tyranny, oligarchy, or the demos produce the excesses which lead to revolution.
Based upon your upbringing as described by you, I am not surprised you can’t separate the wheat from chaff and think that the empire, oligarchy was the Founder’s game plan.Then you double down and blame the school system for creating middlebrows and lumpenproles when it is the middle class that abandoned the polity by permitting an excess of private education by the oligarchs and lack of antitrust enforcement to permit the winnowing of the middle class.
The oligarchs always end up eating their own.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said it best.
“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. ”
Democracy ?
What is that actually. Everybody pretends to know, like it’s something exact.
Personally I am enamored of the original Athenian democratic logic, where candidates were chosen randomly, since the last people to whom you want to entrust power is those that seek it. It was like jury-duty — you couldn’t say No.
If voters had a brain, the M$158 should be a big red flag, not a plus.
That is how I view it – The NYT is reporting another 100 Million
Yes. Like the spending in California asking voters to vote “No” on Prop 40.
Now that is such a huge red flag that it should be visible from outer space!
That’s how I am gonna vote in the California propositions. I will vote the OPPOSITE of whichever side is getting more money.
If it is a ratio of 2:1 or more, it is a no-brainer. e.g., Prop 40 – FOR: $32 million AGAINST: $340 million.
well the good thing is, even if Paxton wins he is an honest, transparent, above the board, stand up type of guy.
we can rest assured it won’t affect any of his decisions.
do we need the /s?
Yes and he is loving and faithful to his wife. Must have some great leadership qualities and tremendous morals and values to be impeached by his own party. A real standup guy. On second thought, nearly the entire Republican Congress sold out Thomas Massie. Hmmm. Makes me wonder.
You’ll need the /s because businesswoman and Arthur “little hookers” Orwell would argue as much without a shred of irony.
> Fundamentally, it’s his money. As a Libertarian, I have to say that people should be able to do what they want with their money.
Does this apply to private islands or is there a line in the sand somewhere?
This has nothing to do with raping kids
I want to see Trump and Hassett exposed for what they are.
I see.
I personally think there need to be limits on how much one person can influence elections, because the road we are on leads to the complete death of democracy one way or another. We’re already struggling to keep disinfo operations from derailing things, so letting one person singlehandedly make the messaging around elections lopsided seems like an easy way to throw fire on that problem.
Mish, I agree you should vote your conscience.
But the fact that Musk is pouring so much money into securing a win in TX proves that the Republicans are worse than the Dems, at least right now.
Not just trump and hassett but all of them regardless of politics or wealth. Release all Epstein files and any pic or videos with no redactions except the victims information, where they want to be protected. Then fully investigate and prosecute the guilty.
of course it will help. money always does. and musk is a hero in TX. i wonder how many offspring he will produce before he croaks. 100 or 1000 or 100000 bastards ? what a crackpot.
When Musk bought Tesla from it’s founders one of the stipulations of the sale was that he (Musk) would be officially called the founder. He is nothing but a shrew and ruthless business person with no morals or empathy for his fellow man. His continued sucking of the federal tit qualifies him for the title of “welfare queen supreme”.
Seeing DOGE, this is more like the welfare queen squatting over the prez in the oval office, before brandishing a chainsaw to slice everybody’s else’s pie.
Howard Hughes was from Texas. He had federal government boondoggles too — remember the spruce goose?
This is what is wrong with politics. Paxton is a corrupt amoral scumbag who is for sale to the highest bidder. But just because he has a ‘R’ next to his name people will still support him. Rational? At least he is not as bad other the other guy. What a great ‘democracy’.
The wheels are coming off the Trump Clown car bigly now, and its really quite funny because its all self induced. The guy is an idiot but with a rare ability to connect with half-wits- which is of course invaluable in politics
What a show!
Perhaps, this is the only way that trump and his boot lickers can win is to buy the elections. What a great example.
Mish,
I’ll be voting similar. No on my city’s attempt to establish an income tax. No on any public school levy – they take my money and provide almost nothing in return since we homeschool and use private schools, so they and the teacher’s unions can eat shit. And at the state level, I’ll either not be voting for Republicans or voting Libertarian.
Boo, buy the kids of poors lunch sheesh
I’d rather buy their parents birth control or chemical sterilization.
Well, as I understand it, money beat Massie. I hope it beats the Democrats. Democracy can be appalling when you have a decadent population.
ahh Arthur comes out of his hole.
Wrong, the spending on Massie vs Gallrein was about even. You are correct that most of brain dead Gallrein money came from Isreali and MAGA PACs. Woo-hoo count that as a victory for democracy.
What other things do you want to get wrong from down under Arthur? Maybe things are getting lost in translation from the 8000 mile trip over to you.
That’s always a risk. But they also do say that you can sometimes see things more broadly from far away. I don’t think you can generalize. Some things you can see better from far away: other things you need to be up close to see. From where I sit, Trump is a competent man with some idiosyncrasies and a bit of vindictiveness. Most of your politicians (and most of ours) are place-holders.
Also this is the latest herr drumpf plan to go rally the MAGA true believers:
Truth Details | Truth Social
If this is inspiring confidence in you that MAGA money will save the house and senate, then you know less about American politics than I had imagined. Which wasn’t much.
These random pedophile defending comments wouldn’t be so funny if we didn’t have definitive proof that you are a pedophile who calls children, literal children, “hookers”. Funny how the racist guys always seem to think kids are strangely sexy.
https://mishtalk.com/economics/does-president-trump-have-any-idea-what-passports-are-for/#comment-449328
😂😂😂