The U.S. political arena is no stranger to large political donors, as wealthy Americans, industry groups and corporations attempt to influence government actions, lawmakers and the court system. In recent years, however, as the U.S. Supreme Court has removed almost all limits on Americans’ ability to spend money on political causes, the scale of donations has dramatically increased.
No single person has taken advantage of this new reality more than the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who funneled more than $277 million into efforts to elect Donald Trump and other Republicans to office in 2024. Musk’s efforts ranged from a very public “Super PAC” devoted to supporting Trump’s presidential campaign to a shadowy committee called RBG PAC that falsely claimed Trump’s abortion views were similar to the late liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
While Musk’s huge political donations alone are not unique – other billionaires have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the American political system – his combination of spending so much money to elect a president and gaining unprecedented access to the corridors of power makes his influence campaign different.
“Musk took it to a new level,” said Jonathan Salant, a veteran journalist and former president of the National Press Club who spoke to Global Business Journalism students on March 4.
“There already are plenty of hundred million dollar donors. [But] Musk accelerated it. He’s like on steroids.”
Musk’s spending has come under intense scrutiny because he owns a diverse collection of companies dependent upon the presidential administration for billions of dollars in government contracts. Musk’s empire includes electric car producer Tesla, space technology giant SpaceX, satellite company Starlink (a SpaceX subsidiary), and the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, renamed X.
The South African-born billionaire has played a central role in the 2025 Washington political drama since Trump anointed him the de facto head of the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency.
“Musk giving a lot of money is something we have seen [from wealthy donors] before,” Salant told the students. “Musk giving a lot of money and being able to carry out his wishes is something we have not seen before.”
Wielding a chain saw for dramatic effect and using his social media platform to eviscerate critics, Musk has become the public face of Trump’s efforts to “slash and burn” the federal bureaucracy that he has long denounced as “the deep state.” Musk’s flamboyant style and scowling visage have made him a highly polarizing political figure in the United States. According a CNN poll released March 12, 35% of Americans have a positive view of Musk, while 53% view him negatively.
Salant, a veteran political and investigative reporter, said Musk’s White House role and special access to Trump have made him a lightning rod for controversy in recent months.
“Musk is also an advisor to the president,” said Salant, who has worked for Bloomberg News, the Associated Press, Congressional Quarterly and other news outlets. “People with outside interests have gotten a lot of things they want from him. [However] Musk is actually in the Oval Office, and [can] bypass some of the people he doesn't like.”
Musk's relationship with Trump has reached new levels since he officially joined the White House. Trump has provided free publicity for Musk's beleaguered car company, which had lost more than 50% of its stock value since the president's election win in November, by displaying five Teslas on the White House grounds, posing for photographs inside a bright red model and pledging to buy one – despite his long history of trash-talking electric vehicles.
And Musk has shown his gratitude in cold, hard cash. According to a March 12 report in The New York Times, the billionaire industrialist "has signaled to President Trump’s advisers in recent days that he wants to put $100 million into groups controlled by the Trump political operation." Both the massive sum of money and campaign cash coming from an active White House staffer are "unheard-of," the Times declared.
Musk was not always known to be such a big spender on political causes. Over the past quarter-century, he donated sporadically, and often to influential Democrats such as Hillary Clinton and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York. When he bought Twitter four years ago, a study by the website OpenSecrets.org found that he had given about the same amount of money to both major U.S. parties.
In March of 2024, he claimed he would not donate to either political presidential candidate. In July, however, he made his first political contribution of the cycle. Less than two weeks later, he officially endorsed Donald Trump, taking a prominent position on the campaign trail and spending more than a quarter-billion dollars by November, focusing on the swing states that cinched the election for the Republican.
From politically apathetic, Musk became the country’s number one political donor. Despite his lack of earlier cash contributions, Musk had been heavily involved behind the scenes in Washington for years by funding lobbying efforts on behalf of his companies, Salant pointed out.
As Tesla and SpaceX increased in size, so has the frequency of their lobbying in the American capital. Musk has hired some of the largest lobbying firms in the United States to lobby for his interests. SpaceX has ramped up both its spending on lobbying and its number of lobbyists steadily over the past decade, signaling a desire for more influence on governmental affairs. Its spending on lobbying of Congress and the executive branch has increased more than twenty-fold in 20 years, and its lobbyist roster has more than quadrupled, according to OpenSecrets data. Over the past decade, both its spending and its number of lobbyists has roughly doubled.
Musk’s companies have battled the federal bureaucracy over safety investigations, and he has lobbied over automobile emissions mandates that would benefit his electric vehicles. He also has been active on tax matters and federal spending that would aid his interests.
“I mean Elon Musk is an industry himself,” said Salant.
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