Elon Musk continues his pro-Trump spending spree as Harris continues to dominate the money race, new filings show

CNN
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Elon Musk in October poured nearly $44 million into a super PAC working to restore Donald Trump to the White House. That brought the billionaire's total donation to the group he founded to benefit the former president to nearly $119 million, new campaign finance reports show.

The world's richest man's last-minute fundraising push comes as Trump's Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, continues to overtake the former president in fundraising, bringing in around $97 million – six times what Trump raised in his first 16 days The campaigns reportedly filed with the Federal Election Commission late Thursday evening in October.

But both candidates and their affiliated political operations went on a spending spree this month, burning through more than half a billion dollars combined in the first half of October as they jockeyed for advantage ahead of Election Day.

Here are some key takeaways from the submissions:

Harris' main campaign committee spent nearly $166 million between Oct. 1 and Oct. 16, surpassing the Trump campaign's $99.7 million in spending during the same period. About $130 million of Harris' campaign spending went toward media spending.

And the torrid fundraising pace Harris adopted after rising to the top of the Democratic ticket in late July has given her a greater financial cushion in the final days of the race. The nearly $119 million remaining in her campaign coffers is more than three times the amount Trump had left in his campaign coffers.

And data from AdImpact, which tracks political advertising, underscores how Harris has used that financial advantage to get on the air in battleground states. Her campaign has spent about $488 million on advertising since President Joe Biden withdrew from the race, including on ads to run leading up to Election Day. In contrast, Trump spent about $284 million during the same period.

Musk also supports Trump and Republican candidates in the Senate

Musk has emerged as a major financial figure in this year's election – supporting an unorthodox pro-Trump campaign in key battleground states – a role the former president has largely ceded to outside groups. In recent days, Musk also offered a stimulating $1 million daily sweepstakes for swing state voters that drew scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The new filings show the tech tycoon made four donations totaling $43.6 million to his America PAC in the first half of October. He also wrote checks totaling $12.3 million to other super PACs, mostly supporting Republican efforts to take control of the Senate.

Before this election, the Tesla CEO and X owner had made relatively modest donations to federal candidates, supporting a mix of Democrats and Republicans. But he is deeply committed to helping Trump win the presidency this time and has joined the Republican candidate in the campaign.

Thursday's filings show that Musk's super PAC attracted additional donors in October. Billionaire businessman Nelson Peltz donated $1 million to America PAC and members of the Michigan-based DeVos family, including Trump's Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, also donated six figures.

Other major donors supporting Trump include Midwest packaging magnate Richard Uihlein, who this month donated another $6.5 million to the super PAC he runs – Restoration PAC – which has raised large sums of support of Trump's candidacy. Uihlein, whose family helped found Schlitz Brewing, has long supported conservative, anti-establishment candidates and has emerged as one of the biggest donors to pro-Trump efforts this cycle.

Uihlein's wife, Elizabeth, donated $3 million in October to another pro-Trump group, Preserve America, which was largely funded by billionaire Miriam Adelson, a doctor and widow of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. Ronald Cameron, who runs poultry-producing giant Mountaire Farms, donated $2 million to Preserve America.

WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum, meanwhile, became one of the latest tech personalities to support Trump's campaign by donating $5 million worth of shares in social media giant Meta to Make America Great Again, Inc., the main one Super PAC supporting Trump, the new one, filings show. He previously donated to a super PAC that supported Nikki Haley's failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

MAGA, Inc. also received $1 million each from Arkansas-based investor Warren Stephens and pharmaceutical heir Woody Johnson, the co-owner of the New York Jets and Trump's ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Top donors to Future Forward, a super PAC supporting Harris, include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, who gave $25 million to the group in the first half of October, bringing his total donation to the group to $38 million -Dollar increased.

But a significant portion of the nearly $90 million the pro-Harris super PAC raised during that period — a total of $40 million — came from Future Forward's nonprofit division, which doesn't disclose its donors and all The identities of some of them are concealed from the public by Harris' supporters.

The new filings also show that Liz Cheney, the former congresswoman from Wyoming who broke with her fellow Republicans to support Harris, is not just campaigning with the vice president. Cheney's Our Great Task political action committee donated $2.5 million on Oct. 8 to American Bridge 21st Century, a leading Democratic research and rapid response group that advocates for Harris.

Even as Trump raises money for his presidential campaign, his political operation continues to fund the former president's legal costs.

Between Oct. 1 and Oct. 16, Save America, the former president's leadership PAC, spent $3.9 million on “legal advice,” records show. The lion's share of the money, almost $3.3 million, went to Robert & Robert. Clifford Robert, the firm's managing director, is one of the lawyers representing Trump in his appeal of his civil fraud verdict in New York.