Elon Musk was behind a pro–Donald Trump Super PAC that falsely claimed the president-elect’s position on abortion aligned with the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s.
Politico reported Thursday that the world’s richest man was the only funder behind RBG PAC, giving the group $20.5 million to spend on ads claiming that Ginsburg was of “one mind” with Trump on the issue of abortion. The PAC’s website even displayed photos of Trump and the justice, saying that “great minds think alike.”
Ginsburg’s family vehemently opposed the ads. In October, her granddaughter Claudia Spera said in a statement that using the late justice’s name to “support Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, and specifically to suggest that she would approve of his position on abortion, is nothing short of appalling.”
Musk’s donation is a small fraction of the more than $250 million he spent on the 2024 presidential election for Trump’s candidacy but among the most secretive of the tech CEO’s political expenditures. He donated the $20.5 million on October 24, which was not disclosed until Thursday in a Federal Election Commission filing, conveniently a month after Election Day.
The RBG scheme isn’t Musk’s only deceptive political action during the campaign. The billionaire, through his larger America PAC, spent money on ads that touted Vice President Kamala Harris’s support for Israel, aimed at pro-Palestine Arab and Muslim voters in Michigan, while also funding ads attacking her as supporting anti-Israel policies, which were aimed at Jewish voters in Pennsylvania.
Musk brazenly gave away daily $1 million “lottery” prizes to voters in battleground states in the weeks leading up to the election and successfully avoided any legal consequences for it. But all of this is his known spending. He may have spent much more on right-wing dark money groups and in downballot races, which could remain hidden to the public. And thanks to America’s easily exploitable campaign finance laws, it’s all perfectly legal.
