The News in DataTRENDING
№ 020 · OCT. 22, 2026

Elon Musk Has Given $369 Million This Cycle, More Than The Next Three Donors Combined

The 50 largest individual donors have given about $2.4 billion, and $1.54 billion of it came from Republican-leaning donors.

By Samuel W. Bennett · Midterms 2026
$369MMUSK, 2025–26 CYCLE
$350MNEXT THREE DONORS
COMBINED
Elon Musk has given $369 million to federal candidates and political groups in the 2025–26 election cycle, according to a Washington Post analysis of Federal Election Commission records through Oct. 15. That is more than the $350 million given by the next three donors combined: Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein ($138 million), Jeff and Janine Yass ($110 million) and George Soros ($102 million). Musk gave about $290 million in the 2024 presidential cycle, according to The New York Times.
Most of it came after July 1More than $276 million of Musk's total has come since the start of July, according to The New York Times, and the largest share went to the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Senate Republican leaders. He gave it $75 million on Sept. 9 and $83 million about two weeks later, and the PAC's filings show it moved the same amounts into a new affiliate, Texas PAC, the day after each gift, according to the Texas Tribune. The Senate Leadership Fund has booked more than $159 million in ads through Texas PAC in the Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico, according to AdImpact, and the $158 million it received from Musk equals about 43% of his cycle total.
Where the rest of the summer money wentThe Times listed the other recipients of Musk's gifts since July as America PAC, the super PAC he started in 2024 (more than $76 million), the Congressional Leadership Fund, the House Republican leadership super PAC ($20 million), Lone Star Liberty PAC, which backs Paxton ($10 million), the Republican Governors Association ($10 million) and the Republican Attorneys General Association ($2 million). The last two are state-focused groups that file with the IRS rather than the FEC. America PAC reported $139.2 million in receipts and $129 million in spending for the whole cycle through Sept. 30, according to its FEC filings.
The top donors lean Republican, more than they did in 2022The 50 largest donors have given about $2.39 billion this cycle, according to the Post's tally: $1.54 billion from Republican-leaning donors, $590 million from Democratic-leaning donors and $259 million from donors the Post classified as bipartisan or special-interest. A CNBC analysis of FEC data through Sept. 25 found Republican-aligned donors supplied 86 cents of every dollar given by the 10 largest donors, compared with 67 cents at a comparable point in the 2022 midterms. Soros is the only Democratic-leaning donor among the four who have given more than $100 million.

Money the ranking doesn't capture, on both sides

The Times reported that Musk has given additional, undisclosed amounts in both 2024 and 2026, according to people briefed on the giving, and those gifts aren't in any FEC total. Michael Bloomberg's representatives told The Times he has given about $80 million to Democratic candidates and groups since September, most of it too recent to appear in FEC filings. ActBlue, the platform most Democratic campaigns use for online donations, said it processed $833 million in the third quarter at an average of $44 per contribution, which it described as its largest quarter outside a presidential year. We could not find a comparable third-quarter total from WinRed, the Republican counterpart, so we don't compare the two.

What's next

Pre-general reports covering Oct. 1 to 14 were due Oct. 22, and post-general reports covering the final weeks are due Dec. 3, so every total here will rise. Rankings also depend on how each outlet groups couples, family members and the companies they control, which is why the Post, CNBC and others report slightly different figures for the same donors.

How we counted: donor totals are the Washington Post's analysis of FEC records through Oct. 15, 2026, as reported by Spectrum News and WION; they cover federal contributions by individuals and couples, not state-level giving. Lean labels follow the outlets' classification; Andreessen and Horowitz and the Winklevoss twins also gave heavily to industry super PACs that back candidates in both parties. Musk's 2024 total, his gifts since July and the report of undisclosed giving are from The New York Times (via the Boston Globe); the Senate Leadership Fund transfers are from its FEC filings as reported by the Texas Tribune; ad bookings are from AdImpact via the Tribune. America PAC figures are from its FEC committee page. The top-10 share is CNBC's analysis of FEC data through Sept. 25. ActBlue's figures and its description of the quarter are from its Oct. 2 release. Bloomberg's figure comes from his representatives and has not yet appeared in FEC filings. Sources: Spectrum News; WION; Texas Tribune; Boston Globe/NYT; FEC: America PAC; CNBC; ActBlue; Forbes on Bloomberg. Download the data.