Tech mogul Elon Musk, who is the world’s richest person, has committed more than $70 million (€83 million) into helping Donald Trump and other Republicans win in November’s election in the US, according to campaign finance disclosures released this week.
It makes him one of the biggest donors to Republican Party causes this campaign season.
Mr Musk made the donation over the summer to America PAC, a super political action committee he launched in May to aid Mr Trump in his bid to return to the White House.
It quickly became a central player in Mr Trump’s election effort.
“The America PAC is just aiming for common sense, centrist values,” the Space X and Tesla founder said on Tuesday on his social media platform X, shortly after the sum of money he contributed was made public in a campaign finance filing.
Super PACs such as Mr Musk’s America PAC can raise and spend unlimited sums of money but are typically forbidden from co-ordinating their efforts with the candidates they support.
A recent opinion by the Federal Election Commission, which regulates federal political campaigns, allowed for candidates and these big-spending groups to work together on so-called ground game efforts, which are the armies of people deployed to knock on doors to help turn out the vote.
While candidates and political parties have traditionally organised and paid for such efforts, Mr Trump’s campaign has struggled to raise money this year and has turned to a handful of outside groups to undertake the work, with Mr Musk’s America PAC being top among them.
But in doing so, the campaign has outsourced a core function to a coterie of untested groups that operate independently.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s decision to have an outside group canvass for him is said to be one of the reasons his presidential bid failed.
