Elon Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars to elect Trump, including funding the mysterious “RBG PAC”

Billionaire Elon Musk poured more than $20 million into a mysterious super PAC at the end of the 2024 campaign, part of more than $250 million he spent in total to boost President-elect Donald Trump, as new campaign finance reports show.

According to the report the group filed with the Federal Election Commission on Thursday evening, Musk funded the RBG PAC. The super PAC, which did not disclose its donors before the election, released ads claiming that Trump did not support a federal abortion ban.

All of the money the group raised – $20.5 million – came from a single donation from the Elon Musk Revocable Trust in Austin, Texas. According to the campaign finance report, which ran from Oct. 17 to Nov. 25, RBG PAC spent nearly all of its money on digital advertising, mailers and text messages.

The group’s website said Trump and the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed on the abortion issue, drawing criticism from Ginsburg’s granddaughter Clara Spara, who told the New York Times that the message was “downright appalling “.

Trump praised the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court, a decision that came after three Trump-appointed justices voted with a majority to overturn the nation’s right to abortion. (One of those justices, Amy Coney Barrett, was appointed to replace Ginsburg weeks before the 2020 election, after Ginsburg died in mid-September.) As president, he supported a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks.

But during this campaign, Trump backed away from that position, saying instead that he supports the right of states to decide abortion laws. Democrats are still hitting Trump hard over his past positions, arguing that he and a Republican Congress would restrict abortion nationwide if elected.

RBG PAC’s late ad campaign represents only a small fraction of Musk’s total election spending this year: He also funded America PAC, a super PAC that reportedly spent $157 million supporting Trump in the presidential campaign.

America PAC’s most recent campaign finance report shows that Musk donated $238 million to the group throughout the election cycle, including in-kind contributions. Of this, $120 million was raised in the final weeks of the race alone.

Federal disclosures show that America PAC spent large sums on canvassing, SMS-based campaigning, printing and postage (most likely direct mail), and digital advertising. There was also a controversial cash raffle in which $1 million was donated each day to someone who signed the group’s conservative-leaning petition.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner sued Musk and America PAC in late October to stop the sweepstakes, but a state judge did not agree to stop the program. Around the same time, the Justice Department also warned the PAC that the gift might be illegal, but no public action was taken.

America PAC’s campaign finance report lists all $1 million awards as payments for a “speaker consultant.”

Musk also donated $3 million in late October to the MAHA Alliance, a super PAC tied to Robert F. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again initiative.

It’s possible Musk also donated more to pro-Trump efforts as political committees continue to file fundraising reports tied to the Thursday night deadline.

Musk, the founder of Space He was a regular presence at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate, and was at Trump’s side during the transition (to the dismay of some in Trump’s circle).

Trump selected Musk to co-chair his Department of Government Efficiency Initiative to advise him on spending cuts across the federal government.