Seventy Years of Political Action 1953 - 2023
Elon Musk was the sole funder of a super PAC formed in the final weeks of the election that spent millions on ads claiming Donald Trump’s position on abortion was aligned with that of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The $20.5 million that Musk put into that group, RBG PAC, accounted for just a small fraction of his total political spending this year, which included $238 million to a super PAC he started and millions more to other GOP groups.
In total, the richest person in the world plowed more than $260 million into the 2024 election, making him likely the single largest individual political donor of the cycle.
Musk’s involvement with his group, America PAC, was well-known, with the tech CEO appearing at events in swing states, posting about the super PAC on X and conducting very public sweepstakes. But RBG PAC — and Musk’s involvement in it — was more secretive. He poured $20.5 million into the group on Oct. 24, which was not revealed until it filed a campaign finance report with the Federal Election Commission late Thursday. The timing of the donation meant that Musk’s support did not have to be disclosed until after the election, and neither he nor the group publicly touted his backing.
RBG PAC spent nearly all of its money on advertising. Its ads claimed that Ginsburg — the liberal longtime justice and staunch women’s rights advocate who died in 2020 — was of “one mind” with Trump on the issue of abortion. Its website featured photos of Trump and Ginsburg with the caption “great minds think alike.”
Justices largely avoid speaking publicly about presidential politics, but Ginsburg’s dying wish in 2020 was that she not be replaced on the court by Trump, her granddaughter said. Trump replaced her with Amy Coney Barrett shortly before the 2020 election; Barrett was in the judicial majority that voted to overturn Roe vs. Wade two years later.
The flurry of RBG PAC advertising came in the final weeks of this year’s election, after Democrats spent months — years — hitting Trump on the issue of abortion after the court led by justices he appointed overturned Roe, leading more than a dozen states to ban the procedure.
Musk — who is poised to advise Trump under the banner of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency — became a major political player this year, endorsing Trump and appearing alongside him on the campaign trail. His spending was mostly in the presidential race, but he also dropped millions for down-ballot elections.
His America PAC raised $252 million over the cycle. Its late spending push included nearly $41 million related to the petition the group circulated, with Musk promising $1 million giveaways to certain signers and smaller checks to others who referred voters to sign. The group also spent tens of millions on canvassing and mailers in the presidential race, and a few million dollars across more than a dozen House races.
In late October, Musk also gave $3 million to a super PAC linked to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and $924,600 to Trump 47 Committee, his first direct donation to Trump's operation. That joint fundraising committee sends money to Trump’s campaign as well as the Republican National Committee and other GOP groups.
Musk this year also previously gave $1 million to the GOP-linked super PAC Early Vote Action and several hundred thousand dollars to a joint fundraising committee affiliated with Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.).
Pete Hegseth spent this week attempting to woo senators — and others — as he fought to remain Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of Defense. He met with wary and supportive lawmakers, his lawyer tried to shoot down misconduct allegations and even his mother went on Fox to defend her son.
But his meetings with lawmakers Thursday were in many ways overshadowed by Sen. Joni Ernst, the Iowa Republican still expressing doubts over Hegseth’s nomination, and larger questions about his suitability to lead the nation’s armed forces.
Ernst has emerged as one of the key Republicans who could help sink his looming nomination. As Hegseth was in the first meeting of the day on Thursday, a Fox reporter told Ernst it sounded like she was not fully on board with supporting Hegseth.
“I think you are right,” she responded.
Ernst met with Hegseth on Wednesday in her Senate office. The next day, she said she had no plans to meet with him the rest of the week. Hegseth on Thursday instead met with some of the remaining Republicans on the Senate Armed Services committee, who are mostly Trump allies and appeared supportive of his Cabinet picks: Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Tom Cotton (R-Ark), Katie Britt (R-Ala.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Hegseth also met with Sen.-elect Jim Banks (R-Ind.).
“I really do see a path forward for him to be successful in being accepted by the Senate for this position, but he's got more work to do,” Rounds said after his meeting with Hegseth. Rounds previously expressed concerns about former Rep. Matt Gaetz, Trump’s first pick for attorney general, before he withdrew.
But without Ernst, who serves on the Armed Services Committee and is a veteran and sexual assault survivor, along with other skeptical Republicans like Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, Hegseth’s confirmation appears in jeopardy.
The veteran and former Fox News personality left the Capitol telling reporters he answers to only Trump, God, his family and the 100 senators voting on his confirmation, not the media.
And he reaffirmed that he is not dropping out: “As long as Donald Trump wants me in this fight, I'm going to be standing right here in this fight,” he said to reporters on Thursday afternoon.
Hegseth defended himself against a slew of allegations. In 2017, he was investigated for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman but was never formally charged. He later paid the woman an undisclosed sum to stay quiet about the incident, which he claimed was consensual. A recent story in The New Yorker reported he stepped down from two nonprofits “in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.”
And NBC News reported that colleagues at Fox News were concerned that he had a drinking problem.
Trump’s transition team had previously denied that Hegseth had a drinking problem, but he also said he wouldn’t drink alcohol if confirmed.
On Thursday, Hegseth said he had changed and added that God, his family and his wife, who accompanied him to the Senate on Thursday, helped get him get back on track.
“I'm a different man than I was years ago, and that's a redemption story that I think a lot of Americans appreciate, and I know from fellow vets that I've spent time with, they resonate with that as well,” Hegseth said in response to the allegations. “You fight, you go do tough things in tough places on behalf of your country, and sometimes that changes you a little bit.”
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Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced Wednesday that he will run for Michigan governor as an independent, breaking from the Democratic Party.
“I’m not running to be the Democrats’ governor or the Republicans’ governor — I’m running to be your governor,” Duggan, a lifelong Democrat, said in a video announcement.
The three-term mayor is the first to officially enter what is expected to be a crowded 2026 field vying to replace Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who is term-limited from running again.
Duggan, who is the second-longest-serving mayor in the city’s history, announced last month that he would not seek a fourth mayoral term, telling the Detroit Free Press at the time that he “felt like I did what I set out to do.”
Duggan said in the video that as mayor, he “didn’t fit comfortably inside the dogma of either of the two political parties.” He added that “when the calls mounted to defund the police, I angered some in my own party” by approving increased overtime pay for Detroit Police officers in 2022.
“It’s clear to me that there are a lot of people in this country who are tired of both parties and tired of the system,” Duggan told The Associated Press in an interview. “And so I want to offer people a choice.”
Duggan entered the mayor’s office in 2013 as Detroit was reeling from bankruptcy, and is widely considered to have succeeded in his efforts to restore the city. He won reelection in 2021 with 76 percent of the vote.
“The political fighting and the nonsense that once held Detroit back is too often what we’re seeing in Michigan today,” Duggan said in the video, adding, “I’m going to see if I can change that by starting a campaign for governor, by having a conversation about whether it’s time for a whole new approach — a governor who’s an independent.”
Over the last 24 hours, Donald Trump lost his pick to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration. His choice for Defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is struggling to gain support from Senate Republicans. The president-elect is now even considering his onetime rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis, to lead the Pentagon.
And these shake-ups to his not-yet-formed administration come after former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration as Trump’s choice for attorney general.
All told, the setbacks are raising new questions about Trump’s power over his party, whether Republicans would submit to any and all of his demands — and the expectation that his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, would bring order to Trump’s transition and White House.
On Tuesday, Chad Chronister, Trump’s choice for DEA administrator, abruptly withdrew from consideration just days after being announced, saying in a post on X he made the decision “as the gravity of this very important responsibility set in,” without citing a specific reason. Chronister, a county sheriff in Florida, had drawn criticism from some conservatives over his actions during the Covid-19 pandemic but was not seen as one of Trump’s more controversial administration picks.
He was the second Trump nominee to drop out of consideration in as many weeks, following Gaetz’s brief, whiplash-inducing candidacy, which thrust Capitol Hill into chaos over a sealed ethics report into the former Florida congressman. Trump ultimately replaced Gaetz with former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.
And now, as new reports come out about Hegseth that could further impede his confirmation by the Senate — including allegations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse — Trump is considering dropping the former Fox host and installing another Florida man: his, and Wiles’, old foe DeSantis.
Hegseth took to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet with Senate Republicans, including the chamber’s incoming leadership and Sen. Joni Ernst, who is seen as a potential swing vote on his nomination. He told reporters he was still in the race — and that Trump himself had told him to “keep fighting.”
“Why would I back down? I’ve always been a fighter,” Hegseth said.
Not all the Senators in his party are convinced. "We absolutely cannot have a Secretary of Defense that gets drunk on a regular basis. … I got to know that he's got that problem licked," Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who will meet with Hegseth soon, told the Washington Post.
Trump’s thinking on potentially replacing Hegseth with DeSantis was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Trump has also floated other names, including Ernst, a Senate Armed Services Committee member and sexual assault survivor, and Elbridge Colby, a Trump ally and former Pentagon official, according to the Journal.
Swapping Hegseth for DeSantis could be politically savvy for Trump: DeSantis is a rising star in the party who, as governor, likely has far fewer skeletons in his closet than Trump’s other, more controversial picks. But it would also sting for Trump, who sparred publicly with DeSantis during his shortlived GOP primary campaign — which Wiles is credited with obliterating as part of a longstanding feud.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, the rivalry between Trump and DeSantis turned ugly fast — and the political warfare didn’t stop at nicknames like “pudding fingers” and “Ron DeSanctimonious” and petty blows about shoe-lifts. Trump considered DeSantis’ challenge to be an act of disloyalty — a trait Trump may despise above all others.
Since DeSantis bowed out of the race and endorsed Trump, their relationship has begun to thaw, and elevating a former critic to high places isn’t exactly novel for the president-elect (just look at former-never-Trumper-turned-Vice President-elect Sen. JD Vance).
But Trump’s consideration of the Florida governor also signals that his Cabinet nominees may need more than loyalty to survive a Senate confirmation.
Chronister, a county sheriff in Florida with little experience outside local law enforcement, was seen as a potentially odd pick to lead the DEA — but relatively uncontroversial compared to the other bombastic figures in Trump’s roster.
But his actions during the Covid-19 pandemic, support for red flag gun laws, and previous donations to Democrats, according to Florida Phoenix, had drawn criticism some conservatives, including Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.).
A Trump transition spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday morning that President-elect Donald Trump has told him to "keep fighting" as he faces serious doubts about his ability to get confirmed as Defense secretary.
“I spoke to the president elect this morning. He said, keep going, keep fighting," Hegseth said. "Why would I back down? I've always been a fighter."
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