If Ken Paxton wins in Texas, he may have Elon Musk to thank.
Mr. Musk, the world’s richest person and a Texas resident who has major business interests in the state, sent $158 million in September to a super PAC that immediately flipped that much money to a group backing Mr. Paxton’s Senate bid, according to campaign-finance filings released Thursday.
The donations from Mr. Musk, collectively some of the biggest ever recorded in American politics, have allowed Mr. Paxton to remain financially competitive even as he is vastly outraised by his Democratic opponent, James Talarico. Republicans in Texas have grown increasingly worried about the race, one of this year’s most expensive and high-profile contests, fearful of losing a statewide election in Texas for the first time in more than three decades.
Mr. Musk sent the money to Senate Republicans’ top super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, in donations of $75 million on Sept. 9 and $83 million on Sept. 23. Each time, the very next day, the super PAC cut a check of the same amount to Texas PAC, a group that the Senate Leadership Fund had set up to support Mr. Paxton.
The money sent to the Texas group was not necessarily Mr. Musk’s, and super PAC officials have said publicly that they were seeking new donations to finance a pro-Paxton operation. But without Mr. Musk’s historic donations, it’s unlikely that such a large amount would have flowed Mr. Paxton’s way.
Rarely has an individual donor been effectively tied to such a large commitment for a single candidate.
The New York Times reported on Monday about Mr. Musk’s contributions to the Senate Leadership Fund and how they could end up helping Mr. Paxton, but the campaign filings offered more detail on the choreography of Mr. Musk’s donations.
Mr. Musk also donated $10 million to a separate pro-Paxton super PAC, money that allowed the group to start running television ads in late August. Mr. Musk, who lives in Austin, and Mr. Paxton, who as the state attorney general regulates Mr. Musk’s businesses in Texas, have been allies in state politics.
Mr. Musk has not shown much enthusiasm in public or private about any midterm candidates, rarely posting on X, his social media site, about Republican nominees. But in recent days, he has posted negatively multiple times about Mr. Talarico.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Talarico has criticized the political influence of billionaires like Mr. Musk.
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