A wave of attack ads funded by Elon Musk’s America PAC attack five Democratic Senate candidates is built on distorted votes, stripped-out context and at least one doctored quote, according to a new fact check.
Popular Information journalists analyzed the ads accusing the Democratic candidates of supporting “taxpayer-funded sex change surgeries on kids,” and found numerous inaccuracies and distortions.
The ads, which ran in Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Alaska between Sept. 5 and 21, cost roughly $1 million, with more than half of that sum targeting surging Texas Senate candidate James Talarico.
None of the candidates named in the ads actually support the surgeries described, and gender-affirming surgery for minors is exceedingly rare in the United States, according to 2024 research from Harvard.
In Texas, the ad against Talarico cites his 2023 vote against a state bill that banned not just surgery but a broad range of gender-affirming care for minors, but Talarico had instead backed a narrower amendment limited to surgery, and Texas Medicaid already didn’t cover such procedures. Asked this month whether he’d support a nationwide surgery ban for minors, Talarico said, “Absolutely.”
The ad targeting Ohio’s Sherrod Brown recasts a 2023 quote in which he said, “A child’s health care decisions are between them, their parents, their families and their doctors” — a statement that never mentioned funding, let alone endorsed it.
In Iowa, an ad against state Rep. Josh Turek points to his vote against a 2025 budget bill containing a Medicaid surgery ban that was already redundant, since Iowa had outlawed such surgeries for minors two years earlier. A spokesperson for Turek told PolitiFact in June that he does not support the surgeries.
The most heavily edited ad targets Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, splicing a combative exchange with Fox News host Jesse Watters to make it appear that El-Sayed told parents to “move on” from concerns about the surgeries.
In the original interview, El-Sayed was addressing Watters directly, not parents, and said, “I just think the government shouldn’t tell you what kind of healthcare you should have,” adding, “I’m not advocating anything.”
An ad against Alaska’s Mary Peltola cites a 2024 vote on a military family support program that provides no medical procedures at all, making the underlying funding claim structurally impossible.
Popular Information notes that Musk, who has described his own estranged transgender daughter as “dead, killed by the woke mind virus,” authorized America PAC to spend $100 million to $120 million supporting Republicans this cycle, according to earlier reporting by The New York Times.
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