Elon Musk-Funded Groups Have Spent Millions to Elect Van Orden
Musk has spent $276 million since July defending slim GOP majorities in Congress.
Elon Musk speaking at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore. (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Groups funded by Elon Musk have spent around $4.6 million on behalf of Wisconsin Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden during the closing months of his reelection campaign against Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke.
The funds were part of a record-large surge of donations Musk has given nationally to groups tasked with defending GOP majorities in Congress.
This month, Musk told the New York Times he’s given more than $276 million since July to Republican groups trying to keep Democrats from flipping slim GOP majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate. The bulk of Musk’s donations went to the GOP’s Senate Leadership Fund, while another $76 million went to Musk’s America PAC and $20 million went to the Congressional Leadership Fund.
Eric Petry is an attorney focusing on elections and government with the Brennan Center for Justice. He told WPR Musk’s spending this year is unprecedented.
“That’s on top of over $100 million that he had already committed to the midterm,” said Petry. “So all in, we’re talking over $360 million. That is way more than we’ve ever seen from an individual donor in a midterm election.”
Federal campaign finance reports show that since July 1, some of the groups that received Musk funds have spent nearly $4.6 million to help Van Orden, a Republican from Prairie du Chien.
The race for Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District seat between Van Orden and Cooke has drawn tens of millions of dollars in spending as both parties see it as a key to their plans to either take or hold the House. It’s by far the most expensive House race in Wisconsin.
Since the beginning of July, the Congressional Leadership Fund has spent nearly $4.1 million on third-party ads attacking Cooke. Musk’s America PAC has spent more than $488,000 on ads attacking Cooke and boosting Van Orden. A corporate political action committee for Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies gave Van Orden around $10,000 in September.
In an August social media post, Cooke attacked some of the Musk donations to Van Orden, claiming he’s “selling out our communities to big tech” so they can build AI data centers in Wisconsin. Van Orden responded with a post of his own accusing Cooke of taking maximum donations “from just about the ENTIRE America hating George Soros Family,” claiming she’s “bought and paid for” by radical socialists.
Between the August primary and late September, a WisPolitics analysis showed third-party groups had reserved more than $25 million in ads in the 3rd District race, with groups backing Van Orden holding the edge. During Cooke’s unsuccessful bid against Van Orden in 2024, groups backing her outspent their GOP counterparts.
When comparing just the two campaigns, Cooke has outraised Van Orden, according to their last three campaign finance reports. Between July 23 and Sept. 30, Cooke also outspent Van Orden.
Petry said money doesn’t automatically “equate to a win” but it has an impact on races, “especially close races.”
“So, I think what you can expect to see in these races that are getting flooded by money from big donors across the country is a barrage of ads at the last minute,” said Petry. “We know from history and past experience that most ads, most spending is concentrated in the weeks and days just before the election.”
Musk is no stranger to Wisconsin politics. He spent tens of millions of dollars backing former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel in last year’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race. Musk even doled out multiple $1 million checks to residents who signed a petition, one of which he personally handed to the chair of the Wisconsin College Republicans days before the election. After Schimel lost the race by nearly 11 percentage points, Musk said he would be spending “a lot less” on political campaigns.
Groups backed by Elon Musk have spent millions helping Van Orden was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
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