By MEG KINNARD, Associated Press
Elon Musk was the sole funder of a super PAC formed less than a month before the election that focused on advertising intended to convince voters that Donald Trump ‘s stance on abortion was akin to that of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
A group titled RBG PAC, formed in mid-October, received a single contribution of $20.5 million from an entity entitled “Elon Musk Revocable Trust” a week later, according to federal campaign finance reports filed this week. Because of the short timeline between the donation and Thursday’s reporting deadline, Musk’s affiliation with the group — which he did not talk about publicly — wasn’t revealed until the filings became public.
In the closing weeks before the Nov. 5 election, the RBG PAC group ran a TV ad noting Trump’s statements that he would not, as president, sign a national abortion ban, with a narrator saying he “does support reasonable exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.”
Ginsburg believed that the Constitution protected a woman’s right to an abortion, though she suggested in 2012 that the landmark Roe v. Wade decision “moved too far too fast,” potentially changing how the debate over abortion rights played out over the ensuing decades.
Trump nominated three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe in 2022. That allowed many conservative-led states to ban or restrict access to abortion.
According to a report filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission, the Musk entity spent nearly all of its money on digital ads, mailers and text messages.
That group’s funding represents a small fraction of the more than $200 million Musk spent in the 2024 election cycle, most of it through his super PAC intended to elect Trump, a signal of the influence wealthy people are angling to wield in U.S. politics and Trump’s incoming administration.
The world’s richest man, Musk poured millions into a get-out-the-vote effort to help the former president return to the White House. He is known politically for having transformed Twitter into X, a platform embraced by Trump’s “Make America Great Again” enthusiasts.
Musk’s super PAC, America PAC, ran ads that warned if people sat out the election, “Kamala and the crazies will win.” The PAC launched a $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes that landed the group in court before a judge said it was allowed to continue.
Thursday’s filing came as Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy were on Capitol Hill for closed-door meetings with lawmakers to discuss Trump’s DOGE initiative to dismantle parts of the federal government.
Trump tapped the two business titans to head his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a nongovernmental task force assigned to find ways to fire federal workers, cut programs and slash federal regulations — as part of his “Save America” agenda for a second term in the White House.
Meg Kinnard reported from Chapin, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.
