Elon Musk burned $10 million to help Ron DeSantis and has spent years backing Republican causes: reports
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, ASSOCIATED PRESS
- Elon Musk had funded Republican causes long before he endorsed Trump in July, per new reports.
- He has funneled millions in donations to conservative groups since 2022.
- His America PAC has also donated tens of millions of dollars to support Trump's campaign.
Elon Musk, a vocal backer of former President Donald Trump's presidential campaign, has quietly funded Republican causes for years, according to new reports.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO gave Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida a $10 million donation for his short-lived presidential bid in 2023, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the donation.
Musk gave the money to a group called Faithful & Strong Policies, The Journal reported.
A website for a group of the same name says that it is "committed to promoting and supporting conservative policies and ideas rooted in freedom and our founding principles."
The Journal, citing its sources, reported that more than half of the money given to Faithful & Strong Policies went to Never Back Down, a pro-DeSantis political action committee.
DeSantis, who was once touted as Trump's fiercest rival in securing the Republican presidential nomination, dropped out of the race in January.
The Journal further reported that in 2022, Musk poured more than $50 million into funding advertising campaigns by a conservative group, Citizens for Sanity, citing people familiar with his involvement and tax filings for the group.
In May, The Guardian reported that Citizens for Sanity had ties to Trump's inner circle and had released attack ads targeting President Joe Biden.
The Journal, citing its anonymous sources, added that people involved in the transactions with Citizens for Sanity had used Signal, an encrypted messaging application, to keep Musk's funding secret.
Separately, Reuters reported on Wednesday that since 2022, Musk has given millions to Building America's Future, a conservative political group that also launched advertisements and social media campaigns targeting Biden.
The outlet cited two anonymous sources familiar with the donations.
Musk endorsed Trump in July and has since backed a super PAC called America PAC, which has spent tens of millions of dollars to help Trump's campaign.
An advertisement funded by the PAC portrays Trump as "the American badass."
In July, the Journal reported that Musk had committed to donating $45 million monthly to the PAC. However, he denied the report in a post on X, which featured a meme with the words "fake gnus."
And according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission, America PAC is supporting Republican causes as a whole, having spent more than $5 million on more than a dozen House races across the country.
Musk has also been vocal about his support of Trump on X.
"Unless Trump is elected, America will fall to tyranny," he wrote in an X post on September 18. "Trump must win."
Representatives for DeSantis and Musk didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, sent outside business hours.