Far-right billionaire Elon Musk is spending an unprecedented fortune helping the Republican Party maintain its majorities in Congress, according to a Monday report in The New York Times.

The Times used filings made with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to calculate that Musk has funneled at least $276 million to GOP groups and his own super political action committee (PAC) since July alone.

In total, the Times estimated that Musk has given $366 million in campaign contributions during the 2025-26 election cycle, which is even more than the $290 million he gave during the 2023-24 election cycle to return President Donald Trump and the GOP to power.

Much of Musk's giving this cycle has been to help Republicans maintain their majority in the US Senate, as he has donated $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, the super PAC charged with helping GOP candidates in Congress' upper chamber.

According to the Times, Musk's donation to the fund is "one of the largest political donations in American history, and more than the group’s Democratic rival raised from all of its donors that quarter."

Since July, Musk has also given $76 million to his America PAC, which is building what the Times described as "a sprawling canvassing program to try to turn out hard-to-reach Republican voters" in the coming elections.

The Times emphasized that the $366 million is only the publicly disclosed amount that Musk has given, and one source told the newspaper that the billionaire "has also made some seven-figure donations to support midterm candidates through groups that are not required to disclose their donors."

In a Monday social media post, journalist Daniel Nichanian described Musk's midterm spending as "absolutely insane," and said the billionaire is "single-handedly destroying records and swamping [Democratic] candidates."

Mark Jacob, former metro editor at the Chicago Tribune, said the massive Musk donations should deeply worry Americans who care about democracy.

"He's not doing it to make Americans more free," Jacob wrote. "He's doing it to make Americans his serfs."

Don Moynihan, professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, argued that Democrats cannot allow Musk's efforts to buy congressional elections go unanswered.

"Dems should promise to minimize contracts with clearly partisan government contractors and to impose more regulatory scrutiny on Musk," Moynihan wrote. "At this point, nothing to lose."

In addition to concerns about the sheer volume of Musk's donations, election officials have been raising alarms about how the money is being used.

As reported by CNN on Saturday, America PAC has been sending text messages to Colorado voters telling them that their request for a mail-in ballot has been received, then inviting them to "confirm now where and when to return it."

Carly Koppes, the Republican election chief in Weld County, told CNN that these messages have been causing significant confusion among voters, who automatically receive mail ballots without having to file a specific request.

“People were like, ‘Wait a second. I didn’t submit that request. Is something fishy going on? Did someone submit something on my behalf?'" said Koppes.

Josh Zygielbaum, the Democratic election chief in Adams County, told CNN that he'd received dozens of calls asking about the America PAC texts, and emphasized "that volume of phone calls is usually a good indicator for us that something’s a bigger issue because people generally don’t pick up the phone these days unless there’s a bigger concern."

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