Elon Musk is not spending $45 million a month to elect former President Donald Trump, though he has created a new super political action committee (PAC) to fund the Republican candidate, the billionaire told conservative commentator Jordan Peterson during an interview Monday evening.
During the interview, which was hosted on Musk’s platform, X, Peterson asked Musk if he had “shocked” himself by donating a substantial amount of money to Trump’s campaign. Musk – who has previously criticized Trump, calling him a “bull in a china shop” – paused to correct the “media.”
“What’s been reported in the media is simply not true,” Musk said. “I am not donating $45 million a month to Trump.”
I thought so too, but I just went searching for the source and it appears that everyone gives attribution for this as “according to the WSJ”, and the WSJ attributes it to “people familiar with the matter”. So, no actual statement from Musk that I could find.
That said, I still think he’s likely contributing to a PAC (which makes it technically true that isn’t directly giving to Trump…). I also suspect that it’s very likely he has an agreement with the PAC that they will then spend this money on ads at Twitter, though I have no evidence to back that up.