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Elon Musk, the US’s largest political donor, has said he intends to spend a “lot less” on political campaigns in the future, in a blow to Donald Trump loyalists ahead of next year’s midterm elections.
The world’s richest man, who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars on Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, said he thought he had “done enough” donating to political causes.
Speaking at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday, Musk said: “I’m going to do a lot less [political spending] in the future,” adding that he did not “currently see a reason” to sustain the level of support he has given conservative candidates over the past year.
The remarks come after Musk’s most recent foray into electoral politics ended in defeat. The Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate he backed with more than $25mn lost by 10 percentage points in April, after Democrats turned the race into a referendum on the Trump administration and Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Soon after the defeat, Musk — who polls show is more unpopular than Trump — announced he was stepping back from Doge to spend more time running Tesla, which had suffered a sales slump in part due to protests against the government cost-cutting initiative.
The billionaire transformed the 2024 election by bankrolling Trump’s campaign, and by offering Republicans in key swing states $100 to sign a petition affirming their support “for the First and Second Amendments”, in an attempt to increase turnout in marginal districts.
America PAC, the political action committee set up by Musk, also offered $1mn per day to a signatory of the petitions in the final weeks of the race.
Trump’s supporters had expected Musk to continue supporting Maga-aligned Republicans through the next election cycle.
Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a fierce Trump ally, said in November that America PAC was “going to be critical in mounting primaries against anyone that stands in the way of the Maga agenda”.
But Musk has since clashed with members of Trump’s cabinet and is implacably opposed to the administration’s trade policies. His businesses have also suffered from his proximity to the White House.
On Tuesday, the Tesla chief executive reiterated that he expected to remain in charge of the electric car company for the foreseeable future.
The company denied recent reports that members of Tesla’s board had explored the option of appointing a successor.
Musk, who is fighting a legal battle over a roughly $100bn pay package at Tesla, said he believed “there should be compensation . . . [when] something incredible was done”.
He also suggested his commitment to the company was at least somewhat contingent on pay and whether the shares he is awarded give him sufficient control of the company.
Musk said he would be open to eventually floating his satellite internet business Starlink, which is currently a part of SpaceX, but was wary of the administrative burdens of being a public company.
Additional reporting by Chloe Cornish
