Elon Musk has formally endorsed Republican Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race, putting his name behind a candidate he has already been bankrolling for several weeks.
The tech billionaire and one-time trillionaire has poured more than $150 million into Paxton’s candidacy as the sole donor to Texas PAC, a political action committee backing the Texas attorney general.
On Tuesday, Musk took to X, the social media platform he owns, to urge Texans to head to the polls for Paxton.
“The fate of Texas and America is at stake. Vote for @KenPaxtonTX today,” Musk wrote.
Musk was one of President Trump’s biggest donors in 2024, spending at least $250 million to help return him to the White House. Though the two had a falling out in the spring of 2025, Musk is back in the political arena and bankrolling Republicans in the midterms.
The SpaceX and Tesla chief also has a personal stake in the Lone Star State. Musk moved from California to Austin in 2020, and both Tesla and SpaceX are headquartered in Texas.
Paxton is locked in a tight race with Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, a contest that could help decide which party controls the Senate.
Texas has traditionally been a Republican stronghold, with Trump carrying the state by 14 points in 2024. But the GOP is increasingly worried it could lose a Senate race in Texas for the first time since 1988, and keeping the seat in Republican hands is proving costly.
The two parties have spent more than $500 million on ads in the Texas Senate race, with Republicans accounting for more than $350 million of that total, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Still, Musk’s money may not stretch as far as the dollar figures suggest. Under federal law, outside groups receive less favorable TV ad rates than campaigns do. As a result, while Republicans make up 74 percent of ad spending in Texas, the party accounted for just 58 percent of actual broadcast airings as of Monday, according to AdImpact.
Meanwhile, Talarico has posted record fundraising numbers. The Democrat hauled in $64 million in the third quarter, the most any Senate candidate has ever raised during that period in recorded history. That figure far exceeds what Paxton’s campaign has brought in.
Despite the flood of GOP money into the state, the polls have barely budged. Nonpartisan election forecaster Decision Desk HQ showed Talarico leading Paxton by 3.3 points in its polling average at the end of August. As of Tuesday, after hundreds of millions of dollars in Republican ad spending, Talarico still holds a 2.2-point lead.
The race remains one of the most closely watched contests of the midterm cycle, with both parties viewing Texas as critical to the battle for control of the Senate.
