• There's been little movement in recent years, especially in the House, on banning stock trading.
• That could change this year, with a group of hardline Republicans now pushing the issue.
• "I need to put my foot on the gas a little bit," said Rep. Chip Roy. "Let's deal with it."

For years, lawmakers in both parties have tried to pass legislation to ban members of Congress from trading stocks.

It's popular with the American public. Both outgoing President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump support it. A bipartisan group of senators came together around a single stock trading ban bill this past summer, and two years ago, the House almost took a vote on a bill hastily put forward by House Democratic leadership.

However, an actual floor vote in either chamber has long remained elusive. Now, some hardline House Republicans are hoping to change that.

"I'm tired of my colleagues sticking their heads in the sand on it. It needs to be dealt with, sooner rather than later," Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told Business Insider in a brief interview on Friday.

Roy and 10 other members of the House Freedom Caucus board sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday expressing their "sincere reservations" with his tenure. Many of those lawmakers initially withheld their votes for Johnson, only to relent out of deference to Trump.

In that letter, the GOP hardliners outlined a series of rule changes they wanted to see, along with policy items that they expected Johnson to put up for a vote. Among those items: Ending stock trading by members of Congress.

"If that's what it takes to gain some confidence by the public in the fact that members of Congress work ethically, then I think that's a small price to pay," Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, told BI.

Roy has long been the leader GOP cosponsor of one of the leading bills to ban stock trading, the TRUST in Congress Act, and he told BI that it was his idea to add that demand to the letter. He also happens to be one of Johnson's chief critics, and could — in coordination with the other Republicans — threaten the speaker with a vote on his ouster if the House doesn't take up that legislation.

As of now, it's not clear whether that will happen. Roy said that banning lawmakers from trading stocks is "not as existential to the functioning of the average American family on a daily basis" as some of the other priorities laid out in the letter, including steep cuts to federal spending and enacting tough border security and immigration measures.

The Texas Republican did express frustration with the lack of progress on the issue over the last several years while hinting that this year could be different.

"It's been sitting out there for three or four years, we kind of keep dragging feet, and it's time to deal with it," said Roy. "I need to put my foot on the gas a little bit, and so I'm putting my foot on the gas."

As of now, Roy says that "foot on the gas" involves laying out the demand and talking with Johnson and other relevant committee chairs about moving the legislation.

Johnson, for his part, has not publicly expressed a position on a stock trading ban, and a spokesperson did not provide a position when contacted by Business Insider on Monday. His predecessor, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, did express support for a stock trading ban.

"The perception of Congress, whether true or not, is that some may take advantage of insider information," Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, another Freedom Caucus letter signatory, told BI. "This is a gesture to say, 'Hey, look, we're not treated any differently.'"

Despite widespread agreement on the principle, the details of an eventual ban aren't widely agreed upon, and different bills propose different things. Some legislation would ban the ownership of stocks altogether, but Ogles said that "active day-trading" is the real problem.

"It doesn't mean you can't own stock, so that you can't have mutual funds," Ogles said.

Meanwhile, some House Freedom Caucus members still trade stocks, and one — Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida — violated a federal law requiring timely disclosure of stock trades in the fall of 2024.

A September 2024 report from the Campaign Legal Center found that 44% of House members and 54% of senators own stock.

• Donald Trump offered his full support for House Speaker Mike Johnson.
• Johnson is hoping to be reelected as House speaker on Friday.
• Trump's endorsement may quell a growing frustration about Johnson's leadership.

President-elect Donald Trump has set up another quasi-loyalty test for House Republicans before he formally reenters the White House.

On Monday, Trump endorsed Speaker Mike Johnson to remain as speaker when the House votes on its next leader on Friday.

"Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN. Mike has my Complete & Total Endorsement. MAGA!!!"

If any Republicans still want to challenge Johnson, they would have to defy Trump. While Trump's failure to get the GOP to back his debt ceiling plan shows such defiance is possible, electing a speaker is an entirely different matter.

Republicans hold an extremely narrow majority, meaning Johnson may be able to afford only a single defection.

Without a speaker, congressional lawmakers could not formally certify Trump's 2024 election win, raising personal stakes for the president-elect to soothe current tensions.

At least one potential challenger, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, quickly lined up behind Johnson after Trump's show of support.

"Agreed, @realDonaldTrump!" Jordan wrote on X. "Time to do what we said we would do."

Elon Musk also offered his support.

"I feel the same way! You have my full support," the world's richest man wrote on X in a reply to Johnson's post thanking Trump for his backing.

A handful of House conservatives have previously expressed displeasure with Johnson, particularly his role in crafting legislation that extended government funding through March 14. Musk and Trump teamed up to kill Johnson's initial bipartisan deal, which was loaded with unrelated provisions to garner support from House Democrats.

Not everyone appears to be convinced by Trump's backing. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a libertarian, who initially supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential primary, reiterated his frustration with Johnson's leadership.

"I respect and support President Trump, but his endorsement of Mike Johnson is going to work out about as well as his endorsement of Speaker Paul Ryan," Massie wrote on X. "We've seen Johnson partner with the democrats to send money to Ukraine, authorize spying on Americans, and blow the budget."

Why some conservatives aren't happy with Mike Johnson

Johnson also failed to deliver on Trump's last-minute demand to add a debt-ceiling extension to the must-pass funding bill. Trump has advocated for Congress to permanently ax the debt ceiling, a view shared by liberal lawmakers like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Trump's debt ceiling failure illustrated that despite his popularity among the GOP base, the president-elect doesn't always get what he wants. Last year, Trump unsuccessfully tried to topple Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Unlike the Senate, the House speaker vote is public. The House is also filled with Trump loyalists, even more so than when he took office in 2017. While Trump failed to get Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a close ally, elected speaker last year, the then-former president effectively killed another Republican hopeful's chances during the chaos after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's ouster.

Trump is also more powerful than last year. He returns to Washington with the promise of a GOP trifecta.

As the incoming president, he has a greater perch to reward loyalists and attack dissenters than he did during the 2023 speaker's race.

• A group of Republicans recently introduced a bill to repeal the Impoundment Control Act.
• It would hand Trump more control over government spending — he could even unilaterally cut it off.
• Several Republicans who backed the bill told BI they're fine with giving up congressional power.

Ahead of President-elect Donald Trump's return to the White House, some Republicans on Capitol Hill are ready to do something unusual: Relinquish some of their own power over federal spending.

More than 20 Republicans cosponsored a bill this month that would repeal the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, or ICA, a Watergate-era law that requires the president to spend all of the money that Congress approves. In the absence of that law and subsequent court rulings, the president would have the power to spend less money than what Congress decides — or refuse to spend money on certain programs altogether.

That would bring a massive power shift from the legislative to the executive branch, upending a balance between the two that's existed for 50 years. Some Republicans on Capitol Hill say it's their best hope of enacting spending cuts and reducing the national debt, given Congress's history of inaction and what they view as their colleagues' unwillingness to reduce spending.

"I think the spending is just out of control, and I think Congress is gutless," Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told Business Insider. "I just don't think we're capable of making changes without some other interference, whether it be the executive branch or the voters."

"If the power is reducing expenditures, then I'm all for it," Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri told BI. "Something has to be done."

"You look at where we are in this country, why not give him that power?" Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina told BI, referring to the country's fiscal situation. "At this point, I'm willing to take that risk. Anything can be abused. I can drink too much water, and suffer from it."

The Trump-Vance transition did not respond to a request for comment.

'We can simply choke off the money'

Trump is no stranger to impoundment — his first impeachment was triggered by his refusal to deliver aid to Ukraine. As he's mounted his third presidential bid, Trump has argued that the ICA is unconstitutional and should be done away with, either via congressional repeal or via the courts.

"With impoundment, we can simply choke off the money," Trump said in a 2023 campaign video. "I alone can get that done."

As Trump has staffed up his administration, he's appointed staunch proponents of impoundment to key positions. That includes Russell Vought and Mark Paoletta, who have been nominated to their previously held roles of director and general counsel of the Office of Management and Budget, respectively.

The president-elect's allies have argued that impoundment is a constitutional power that all presidents hold, owing to the president's duty under Article II of the US Constitution to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed."

They also point out that for roughly 200 years before 1974 — when Congress passed the ICA as President Richard Nixon refused to spend money on programs he disagreed with — presidents of all stripes have used impoundment for a variety of reasons, including policy disagreements.

"When Congress passes a spending bill, we pass a ceiling," Rep. Andrew Clyde, the Georgia Republican who introduced the ICA repeal bill, told BI. "It's not a floor and ceiling put together at one number."

More recently, impoundment has been embraced by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, whose "Department of Government Efficiency" initiative aims to enact trillions of dollars in cuts to federal spending. The duo have publicly agreed with Trump's argument that the ICA is unconstitutional, and the topic arose when they visited Capitol Hill to speak with Republicans earlier this month.

"I look at it as a tool of saving money, and being more efficient," Clyde said. "That's what the American people literally demanded in this election."

'Maybe this is too broad'

There are plenty of opponents of impoundment on Capitol Hill, including among Republicans. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the incoming GOP chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has told reporters that she's opposed to repealing the ICA. And it's not just Trump skeptics who are uneasy with it.

"If it's something that further weakens Congress' ability to do its job the way they should be, then I'm going to look at that real carefully," Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada told BI in November.

Key Democrats, meanwhile, have expressed opposition to Trump's impoundment plans. Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, released a fact sheet making a case against impoundment.

"The legal theories being pushed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are as idiotic as they are dangerous," Boyle said in a statement. "Unilaterally slashing funds that have been lawfully appropriated by the people's elected representatives in Congress would be a devastating power grab that undermines our economy and puts families and communities at risk."

Republican skepticism, along with Democrats' likely opposition to any effort to give Trump more spending power, could make repealing the law via Congress an uphill battle.

The president-elect said in the 2023 video that he "will do everything I can to challenge the Impoundment Control Act in court," queueing up what would be a high-stakes legal fight early in his second term.

What remains unclear is exactly how expansively Trump would try to use impoundment. For some of the Republicans who support the effort, it's merely about spending less than what's necessary. Others warn that Trump could use that power in a retributive way, denying federal funding to states and localities over policy disagreements.

Even those who've cosponsored the ICA repeal bill expressed some ambivalence about its potential implications.

"Maybe this is too broad. I don't know," Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona told BI. "But I can tell you this: if you have a president who says 'I don't need 10 billion, I need 2 billion,' then I would like them not to spend that 8 billion. That's really kind of what the objective is, I think."

• Members of Congress were set to make a few thousand extra bucks under a government funding bill.
• Then Elon Musk helped tank it.
• That's despite growing concern that it's becoming unaffordable to serve in Congress.

One of the most controversial pieces of the short-term government funding bill that Elon Musk helped tank last week was a provision that would have allowed members of Congress to receive a modest salary increase.

As Musk argued against the so-called continuing resolution in a stream of posts on X, he said lawmakers were set to receive a 40% salary increase if the bill passed.

In reality, rank-and-file members of the House and the Senate would have gotten at most a pay bump of $6,600, or 3.8% of their $174,000 annual salary, according to the Congressional Research Service.

Nonetheless, that provision wasn't included in the bill that emerged — and was signed into law — after two days of chaos on Capitol Hill.

That's despite growing sentiment from lawmakers in both parties that even if the optics are poor, increasing the congressional salary is necessary to ensure that less-wealthy people are able to serve and aren't lured away by higher salaries in the private sector.

Sen. Markwayne Mullin, an Oklahoma Republican and staunch supporter of President-elect Donald Trump, told reporters last week that the demands and responsibilities of the job made serving in Congress "not affordable" for those who weren't already wealthy like him.

"If we're not careful, you're only going to get the individuals that are millionaires-plus that's able to serve in Congress, and that's not what it's supposed to be," Mullin said. "It's supposed to be the people's house."

A $174,000 salary is far more than the average household income, but it hasn't budged since 2009. Accounting for inflation, lawmakers' salaries have essentially decreased by more than 30% in the past 15 years.

Members of Congress also face unique demands, including the need to maintain two residences: one in Washington, DC, the other in their home district. Those who can't afford it often opt to sleep in their offices. Experts have also said it's simply a matter of good governance: If lawmakers are paid well, they're less incentivized to cash out by becoming lobbyists after their tenure.

"I tell people the worst financial decision I ever made was running for Congress," Mullin said jokingly.

The provision tucked into the original funding bill technically was not a raise but rather allowed for an automatic cost-of-living increase originally established by the 1989 Ethics Reform Act. Those annual adjustments, which are typically single-digit-percentage salary increases, are designed to avoid the optics of lawmakers voting to increase their own pay.

Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, sought to downplay the notion that members were receiving a raise. "It just complies with existing law," Morelle told BI last week. "There's nothing extraordinary about it."

Congress has nonetheless chosen to block those adjustments every year since 2009, owing to both inertia and the political unpopularity of increasing lawmakers' salaries. In March, a cohort of current and former lawmakers filed a class-action lawsuit over those denials, arguing that their wages had been "unconstitutionally suppressed."

The politics of raising wages on Capitol Hill remains toxic, however. As word spread on Wednesday about the cost-of-living adjustment in the bill, lawmakers in both parties came out against it.

"I cannot and will not vote to give myself more money when my constituents are feeling unbelievable financial pressure," Rep. Pat Ryan, a Democrat who represents a New York swing seat, said in a statement that day. "Congress should be focused on lowering costs for the American people, not giving ourselves a raise. If this provision isn't removed, I will be voting against the continuing resolution."

Ultimately, the cost-of-living adjustment was blocked once more.

Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

• Republicans tanked a government funding bill after Elon Musk led a campaign against it.
• Democrats have been insinuating that Musk is now the real leader of the GOP.
• In a statement to BI, a Trump spokeswoman forcefully pushed back.

President-elect Donald Trump's team is making clear that he's the one in charge of the Republican Party — not Elon Musk.

In a statement to Business Insider for a story about how Musk helped tank a government funding bill (otherwise known as a continuing resolution, or "CR") this week, Karoline Leavitt, the Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman, pushed back on statements made by Democrats that Musk is actually calling the shots, rather than the president-elect himself.

"As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view," Leavitt said. "President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop."

Musk has also rebuffed the idea he's calling the shots, writing on X: "All I can do is bring things to the attention of the people, so they may voice their support if they so choose."

That post came after scores of Democrats baited Trump with social media posts accusing Musk of being the actual president-elect, the "shadow president," or the "co-president."

While a statement from Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance late Wednesday marked the final straw for the ill-fated government funding bill, Republican opposition had reached a fever pitch on Capitol Hill long before either of them weighed in.

Several Republicans even cited arguments put forward by Musk or his DOGE co-lead, Vivek Ramaswamy, in explaining why they would oppose what they characterized as wasteful spending in the bill.

Meanwhile, some Republicans questioned why Trump hadn't weighed in sooner.

Trump and Vance also took a different stance on the bill than Musk, who endorsed the idea of simply allowing the government to shut down until January 20, when Trump is set to take office again.

Instead, Trump and Vance called on lawmakers to pass a more narrowly tailored bill while simultaneously raising the debt ceiling — a request that likely won't go over well with many of the same hardline Republicans who cheered Musk's opposition to the bill.

As of Thursday afternoon, it remains unclear how lawmakers will proceed, and whether they'll be able to pass any bill through the House and Senate before government funding runs out at midnight on Friday.

If Congress does not pass a bill by then, the federal government will shut down, likely leading to flight delays, the closure of National Parks, and delayed paychecks for some federal workers and members of the military.

• Elon Musk endorsed shutting down the government until Trump takes office on January 20.
• He and Vivek Ramaswamy are leading a MAGA online pressure campaign against a must-pass funding bill.
• Some GOP lawmakers are listening, and Trump eventually came out against the bill.

In a post on X on Wednesday afternoon, Elon Musk endorsed the idea of shutting the government down until January 20, the date that President-elect Donald Trump is set to be sworn into office.

It was the latest missive in a pressure campaign that Musk, along with fellow DOGE co-lead Vivek Ramaswamy and a host of hardline Republicans on Capitol Hill, have been leading against a so-called "continuing resolution" that would fund the government through March 14.

Just over an hour later, Trump and Vice-President-elect JD Vance called on Republicans to renegotiate the bill in a joint statement, saying that the current one contained too many "giveaways" to Democrats.

Trump and Vance also called on Congress to raise the debt ceiling, a task that lawmakers had not contemplated as part of the funding bill and that they had planned to tackle in the first months of the new year.

"I expected Elon to go off on this a little bit," Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, a staunch Trump ally, told reporters on Wednesday. Mullin said that he remains undecided on the bill, but said that Musk's and others' campaign would "greatly" affect its fate in the House, where lawmakers could take a vote as soon as Wednesday evening.

Opponents of the bill have pointed to a range of provisions that they view as wasteful, including an extension of pandemic preparedness legislation, provisions to allow the Washington Commanders to use the old RFK stadium in Washington, DC, funding for the Global Engagement Center at the Department of State, and a provision that will allow lawmakers to see a modest pay increase for the first time since 2009.

Wednesday's pressure campaign, which ramped up over the course of the day after Musk and Ramaswamy expressed initial opposition to the bill, provided an early glimpse of how the two men may approach government spending fights under Trump. Both of them are leading an initiative tasked with recommending up to $2 trillion in cuts to government spending by 2026.

Musk and Ramaswamy's voices appeared to only be amplified by the fact that Trump himself didn't weigh in on the bill until late in the day.

"What we've heard from both Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy is they want us to shut down government," said Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, according to HuffPost. "Is that the posture of the President?"

Several House Republicans directly cited Musk and Ramaswamy as they expressed their opposition to the bill on Wednesday, while others invoked DOGE to pressure their colleagues to join them in voting against the bill.

"So many members of Congress want the clout of working with @DOGE and @ElonMusk," Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado wrote on X. "Only a handful are actually interested in cutting spending."

Musk also wrote that "any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!"

Just as Musk's prior pressure campaign to install Sen. Rick Scott of Florida as Senate GOP leader failed, Wednesday's campaign against the continuing resolution appeared to show the limits of Musk's grasp on Capitol Hill and legislation.

Both Musk himself and the DOGE X account claimed that the bill would increase lawmakers' salaries by 40%, a vastly inflated figure. According to the Congressional Research Service, the maximum possible increase would be 3.8%.

• Trump said on Sunday that he'd consider trying to raise the federal minimum wage.
• Some Republicans have come around to the idea, including VP-elect JD Vance.
• It's likely to run into significant opposition in Congress — from members of the GOP.

Over the weekend, President-elect Donald Trump said he'd consider raising the federal minimum wage, saying that the current rate of $7.25 per hour is a "very low number."

"There is a level at which you could do it, absolutely," Trump said in an interview with NBC on Sunday, declining to commit to a particular dollar amount. "I would consider it. I'd want to speak to the governors."

As the GOP has sought to refashion itself as a working-class party, several Republicans have proposed increases to the federal minimum wage. Vice President-elect JD Vance cosponsored a bill in 2023 that would raise it to $11 per hour, while Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri has proposed mandating a $15 minimum wage at companies that generate more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

While Vance and Hawley have led the charge for a more economically populist GOP agenda, their point of view remains unpopular within a party that's full of free-market enthusiasts and broadly supportive of business interests.

"If we're going to take a look at it, we should repeal it," Rep. Eric Burlison, a Missouri Republican who sits on the House Education and Workforce Committee, told BI of the federal minimum wage. "I don't think it should exist."

Despite Trump's comments, it's not clear that the president-elect views the minimum wage as a priority at all. He did not pursue an increase during his first term, he threatened to veto a 2019 Democratic bill that would raise it to $15, and he dodged a question on the topic during his McDonald's photo-op in October.

He has long struck a more open-minded note on the topic than many Republicans, backing a $10 minimum wage during his 2016 campaign and saying he'd consider a $15 minimum wage during a 2020 presidential debate. That gives more populist-minded Republicans hope that Trump, if he chose to spend political capital on the issue, could push the party to embrace a higher minimum wage.

After all, he's managed to break long-standing GOP orthodoxy on trade and foreign policy.

"These people wouldn't do two-thirds of what we're going to do in the next two years if it were not for Trump," said Hawley. "Let's be honest."

The Trump-Vance transition did not respond to a request for comment.

Not an 'area of emphasis' for the GOP

Any minimum wage increase would require an act of Congress, and Republicans in both the House and Senate told BI on Tuesday that they were against it. They generally echoed long-standing party dogma on the topic, arguing that wages are best determined by market forces and that any increase would simply trigger soaring prices.

"I don't think the federal government should be in that business," said Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas. "Let the markets go figure out how we can do this stuff."

Republicans aren't unanimously opposed to a minimum wage increase. The proposal that Vance backed — the "Higher Wages for American Workers Act" — is also supported by Republican senators like Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, and Bill Cassidy of Lousiana. Aside from increasing the minimum wage to $11 over the course of several years, that bill would also require companies to verify whether their employees are authorized to work in the United States — a priority for many Republicans.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia — a member of Senate GOP leadership who also supports the bill — told BI on Tuesday that she doesn't expect any movement on that bill in the next Congress, and that she hoped "rising economic growth" triggered by Trump's policies would organically cause wages to rise.

"I just don't see that's going to be an area of emphasis that we're going to go to," said Capito.

A federal minimum wage increase would be popular. Polling has consistently shown a sizable share of Republicans support the idea, and several Republican-leaning states have approved minimum wage increases via ballot measures in recent years.

At the same time, few people still make $7.25 per hour. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, just 1.1% of hourly paid workers were at or below the federal minimum wage in 2023. Most states have enacted higher minimum wages, and some cities have gone even higher.

"The question is, is there a need?" Republican Rep. Glenn Thompson of Pennsylvania said. "Honestly, when you look around the country, positions that used to be minimum wage are now paying $15, $16, $17 an hour."

President Joe Biden supports a $15 federal minimum wage, but was unable to get it enacted due to opposition from several Democratic senators in 2021.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, meanwhile, has proposed an increase to $17.

• Elon Musk spent at least $277 million on Trump and the GOP, according to new documents.
• Most of it went toward America PAC, where Musk spent just shy of $239 million.
• But he also gave over $20 million to a group that compared Trump to RBG.

Elon Musk spent at least $277 million in political contributions to support President-elect Donald Trump and other Republican candidates, according to documents filed late Thursday.

That sum, totaling more than a quarter of a billion dollars, likely makes Musk the single largest donor of the 2024 election. Other top donors this cycle included Timothy Mellon, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, and Miriam Adelson, all of whom spent more than $100 million supporting Trump and the GOP.

Musk, the owner of X and the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, is now set to co-lead a new "Department of Government Efficiency" initiative under the incoming Trump administration.

Here's a look at where Musk's millions went this election cycle.

Musk poured roughly $239 million into America PAC — and spent $58 million of that on voter giveaways

As of November 25, documents filed with the Federal Election Commission showed that Musk had contributed just shy of $239 million to his personal super PAC, America PAC.

That super PAC, almost entirely funded by Musk alone, would go on to spend $154.5 million directly on canvassing efforts and digital ads to support Trump and oppose Vice President Kamala Harris.

More than $19 million went toward supporting GOP House candidates in 18 battleground districts, 10 of whom ultimately won their races.

The most intriguing revelation from Thursday night's report, however, was the amount of money that went towards America PAC's controversial voter giveaways, in which registered voters received $47 or $100 for signing a petition along with the chance to win $1 million.

Records show that $40.5 million went toward paying voters for signing the petition, while an additional $18 million — $1 million apiece — went to 18 lottery winners, each of whom were paid for being a "spokesperson consultant."

Musk poured $20 million into a mysterious PAC that compared Trump to Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Separately from America PAC, Musk was revealed to be the sole funder of a super PAC that ran ads comparing Trump's position on abortion to that of the late liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Musk contributed $20,500,000 via a trust to "RBG PAC," which ran ads highlighting his pledge that there would be no federal abortion ban under his watch.

Clara Spera, an abortion rights lawyer who's also Ginsburg's granddaughter, told the New York Times in October that the PAC was "an affront to my late grandmother's legacy."

"The use of her name and image to support Donald Trump's re-election campaign, and specifically to suggest that she would approve of his position on abortion, is nothing short of appalling," Spera said.

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk's contributions to other GOP groups

While America PAC and RBG PAC represented the bulk of Musk's spending, there's a handful of other groups that have also received money from him this election cycle.

He gave $10 million in October to the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC linked to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, along with more than $2.3 million to Sentinel Action Fund. Both groups spent heavily on Senate elections.

Musk contributed $1 million to Early Vote Action PAC, which is led by the pro-Trump activist Scott Presler, along with $924,600 directly to Trump's campaign and hundreds of thousands to House Republican's central campaign committee.

It's likely that Musk spent even more than what's publicly accounted for, including to "dark money" nonprofit groups that aren't required to disclose their donors.

He reportedly contributed to a dark money group that gave $3 million to a super PAC that ran ads portraying Harris as simultaneously supportive and hostile toward Israel.

Correction: December 6, 2024 — An earlier version of this story misstated Sentinel Action Fund's affiliation with the Heritage Foundation. The group was legally separated from Heritage's political infrastructure in 2023.