• You may have seen some wild claims about politicians' high net worth.
• Most of it's not true, though there are a handful of ways that lawmakers can make an extra buck.
• It's also pretty easy to verify claims about members of Congress's net worth yourself.

If you spend a significant amount of time online, particularly on Elon Musk's X, you may have come across some jaw-dropping information about American politicians' wealth.

There's a good chance it's not true.

Whether it's falsely inflated salaries, charges of illicit sources of income, or estimated net worths seemingly pulled out of thin air, false information about the personal wealth of American leaders is seemingly all over the place online.

The claims are sometimes so outrageous that lawmakers feel compelled to respond, as Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Jasmine Crockett of Texas have.

Some of this false information has been promoted by Musk himself, who recently expressed interest in raising the salaries of members of Congress — based on the notion that they're enriching themselves by steering money toward non-governmental organizations in which they're involved.

The DOGE leader recently reshared a post making false or unverified claims about various top lawmakers, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, former Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

"It's not like these politicians started companies or were NBA All-Stars, so where did they get all the money?" Musk wrote. "Does anyone know?"

Occasionally, members of Congress do engage in outright corruption, with the most recent example being Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey.

But by and large, members of Congress don't have a ton of avenues to enrich themselves, thanks to ethics rules.

There's one key way that lawmakers make extra cash

Under ethics rules, members of the House and Senate are generally barred from earning more than roughly $30,000 in outside income from other jobs.

Some make use of that: Marco Rubio, now the Secretary of State, earned more than $20,000 a year teaching college courses when he was a senator, disclosures show. Many do not.

But some lawmakers do manage to find a way to make extra money while serving — one that's perfectly legal and not subject to the outside income limit: book deals.

This is especially true in the Senate, where lawmakers are more well-known, and thus more likely to sell lots of books.

Take Warren as an example. In 2023, she made more than $36,200 from book royalties. The year before, she made even more — over $443,000.

The Massachusetts senator is an especially prolific author, drawing royalties from a combination of political memoirs she's written since becoming a politician. The books include "The Two-Income Trap," which she wrote as a professor, and even textbooks that she helped write in the 1980s.

In 2023, eight senators made more than $100,000 from book agreements. That includes Democrats like Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Tim Kaine of Virginia, along with Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.

Book proceeds are by far the most common way for lawmakers to generate significant amounts of income while in office.

Sometimes, writing books can allow lawmakers to dramatically improve their financial situations. Rubio, for example, has said that writing a book allowed him to pay off his student loans.

Becoming landlords is another way for property-owning members of Congress to make money.

For lawmakers who are already independently wealthy, there's also a way to pad that: stock ownership. That's more controversial, given that lawmakers may have access to non-public information.

Business Insider's "Conflicted Congress" project found in 2021 that many members of Congress fail to report their trades in a timely fashion, and that conflicts of interest abound.

But making money from the stock market isn't entirely straightforward either: The market rises and falls, and even lawmakers can make bad bets.

You can verify all of this for yourself

If you see a post stating that a rank-and-file member of Congress has an annual salary other than $174,000, there's a good chance that it's fake.

That's the salary that virtually all members of Congress have been paid since 2009 — lawmakers have blocked any increase every single year since then.

Congressional leaders make a bit more than that. The speaker of the House — currently Rep. Mike Johnson — makes $223,500 a year. Every other top party leader makes $193,400.

If you come across a post claiming a lawmaker makes an exorbitant amount of money, it's probably worth fact-checking.

The good news is that anyone can do it themselves.

Every year, members of the House and Senate file reports disclosing their assets, sources of income, and debts. The same is true of Trump administration nominees and candidates running for federal offices.

The Senate maintains an online portal for searching this information, as does the House. For the executive branch, there's a portal managed by the US Office of Government Ethics.

So is Chuck Schumer worth $75 million, and Warren $76 million, as the post that Musk reshared alleges?

No.

According to 2023 disclosures, Schumer is worth roughly $2.3 million, while Warren — who's also publicly released her tax returns — is worth a little more than $9 million.

President-elect Donald Trump's transition will be funded entirely by private donors. His unprecedented move to reject federal funds typically allocated to presidential transitions allows him to shield the identity of donors. We explore why this matters in a video collaboration between Politico and Business Insider.

• 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.

As Donald Trump returns to the White House promising to obliterate business as usual in Washington, the city's lobbyists are preparing for a seismic shift in how — and where — they do business.

"Florida is becoming the power nexus for the country," Bill Helmich, a lobbyist and close Trump ally, tells Business Insider. "It's where decisions will get made."

It's a sentiment echoed by Evan Power, a lobbyist who's serving as chair of the Florida GOP. "Florida is now the epicenter of Trumplandia," Power says.

A dozen leading lobbyists, some of whom spoke with BI on the condition of anonymity, say that having a significant presence in Florida is now an essential part of doing business in Washington. First and foremost, that means hiring lobbyists in the state to work the hallways and links at Mar-a-Lago, where Trump and his inner circle have been charting the transition and making Cabinet picks. A presence at the resort — along with the golf courses Trump owns in West Palm Beach, Doral, and Jupiter — is now seen as a major currency in the lobbying game.

Never before, lobbyists say, has the geographic center of power shifted so dramatically with the arrival of a new administration. In many respects, they say, Palm Beach is going to be the new K Street — the headquarters of the political-influence industry — particularly since Trump no longer owns a luxury hotel blocks from the White House.

What's more, the consensus among lobbyists is that anyone who hopes to influence Trump this time around will have to dispense with traditional lobbying conventions. "We can't do this the same old way," says one prominent lobbyist with ties to Trump. "Trump is such a wild card, and that gives him a lot of leverage. Cookie-cutter lobbying efforts probably won't work like they used to."

For Washington lobbyists, that means changing the way they talk about the world to appeal to the hardcore MAGA loyalists who have succeeded at commanding Trump's attention and dominating his inner circle. "This is not Trump 2.0," says Justin Sayfie, a partner at Ballard Partners, a powerhouse lobbying firm with deep Florida roots and an office down the road from Mar-a-Lago. "It's more like Trump 5.0. This is the most anti-Washington president we've elected since maybe Andrew Jackson."

When it comes to lobbying, the big winner of Trump's first term was Ballard Partners. The firm's success offers some lessons for lobbying firms itching to capitalize on their ties to Trump and his inner circle and establish a beachhead in Florida.

Before Trump's unexpected victory in 2016, Ballard Partners had no presence in Washington to speak of. But its founder, Brian Ballard, had been part of Trump's inner sanctum — first as a top fundraiser in Florida, then as part of the president-elect's transition team. By leveraging his access to Trump, Ballard Partners was able to compete with the old white-shoe lobbying firms that have been the industry's dominant players for decades.

In 2017, the first year of Trump's term, Ballard added dozens of major clients, including Google, Amazon, Uber, American Airlines, Honda, the tobacco giant Reynolds American, the private-prison firm Geo Group, and the American Health Care Association. By 2020, Ballard ranked as the nation's seventh-largest federal lobbying firm in terms of income — an astounding feat for an office that was only 3 years old. Ballard's lobbying business in Florida, meanwhile, regularly ranks among the state's top-earning firms, making it ideally positioned to once again be the go-to lobbying shop for corporations and special interests eager to cozy up to Trump and his MAGA allies in Congress.

Corporate clients need lobbyists who appreciate that Trump is "disrupting the status quo in Washington," Sayfie, the Ballard lobbyist, says. "This creates a sense of both possibility — and great worry and anxiety to navigate."

Any presidential transition poses significant challenges for corporations. Business thrives on stability; it's hard to make plans in the middle of all the uncertainty that comes from shifting political philosophies, legislative goals, and regulatory ambitions. But lobbying insiders say Trump's presidential transition has brought a new level of unpredictability — one that also represents a golden opportunity, for those able to capitalize on it.

"Trump has a mandate from the American people and is using it," says B. Jeffrey Brooks, a partner at Adams and Reese, a law firm with more than 300 attorneys and lobbyists across the country. "It hasn't been this exciting on Capitol Hill since 1994, when Republicans had their Contract with America."

Through his appointments and his campaign promises, lobbyists say, Trump has clearly signaled his desire to remake Washington in Florida's regulation-slashing, "woke"-fighting image — and do so from the comforts of his "Winter White House," now a political redoubt for all seasons. Already, many of the top slots in Trump's administration are going to Floridians who have stuck by him through his many legal and political troubles. Among them are two former Ballard lobbyists: Susie Wiles, whom Trump has tapped to serve as his White House chief of staff, and Pam Bondi, his choice for attorney general.

"Trump's team has distinct, new views that are not old Washington," says Colin Roskey, a principal at the FHP Strategies lobbying firm who served as a deputy assistant secretary of health and human services during the first Trump administration.

Some major companies, lobbyists say, have been caught off guard by the rapid pace of Trump's transition moves. "They're freaking out a little bit," says Dave Wenhold, a partner at Miller/Wenhold Capitol Strategies, which provides clients with lobbying and strategic planning. "Things are going to be coming at them fast and furiously, more than before, and this is where the lobbying community can really show its value."

There's also a new way corporations can seek to influence Trump —without disclosing their influence. Unlike his predecessors, Trump is allowing donors — including foreign nationals — to finance his transition in secret, through unlimited private contributions. Those who bankroll his staff and travel before he takes office, lobbyists say, stand to build connections and curry favor with the once and future commander in chief. "People appreciate people who invested in them," says Power, the chair of the Florida GOP.

Taken together, Trump's singular take-no-prisoners style has lobbyists excited about the possibilities for influence. Scott Mason, a senior policy advisor at the lobbying firm of Holland & Knight who served as the director of congressional relations for Trump's presidential campaign and transition team in 2016, is blunt about the prospects of Trump 2.0: "It'll be a great year for the lobbying world," he says.

Having a good lobbyist, in fact, may be more important than ever. Whatever companies think of Trump and his policies, they now face the prospect of a president who speaks openly about pursuing retribution for what he perceives as slights. On the campaign trail, Trump threatened John Deere with tariffs, called for the prosecution of Google, and tanked Meta's stock price by denouncing Facebook as "an enemy of the people." In an environment of fear and uncertainty, lobbyists expect their business to boom — likely surpassing the record $4.2 billion clients spent last year on federal lobbying.

"You have to recognize how Washington affects your business," Mason says. "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu."

Dave Levinthal is an investigative journalist based in Washington D.C. He was a reporter and editor at Business Insider until 2022.