Elon Musk donates $7 million to help incumbent Ohio Republican US Sen. Jon Husted

As part of unprecedented spending on U.S. elections, the world’s richest man Elon Musk is funneling more than $7 million to try to reelect incumbent Ohio Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, according to an analysis of federal election data by a group demanding regulation of AI companies.

The contributions by Elon Musk are not directly to Husted’s campaign, but instead to independent groups seeking to help Husted’s chances in the Nov. 3 midterms. 

Musk’s expenditures on Husted’s behalf are second only to those on behalf of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued Republican who is in a closely fought U.S. Senate election there. Musk is contributing a whopping $18.8 million to that effort, the analysis by Guardrails Action said.

As with Paxton, Husted is in a tight race. 

Husted’s is against former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat. Husted was appointed in early 2025 to fill the seat, which was vacated when JD Vance became vice president.

President Donald Trump is highly unpopular — in part over his coziness with Big Tech figures like Musk. And Republicans are in danger of losing one or both houses of Congress. 

That raises the prospect of investigations into Trump and an industry that Americans view with increasing suspicion. 

The New York Times on Monday reported that Musk has contributed $276 million to his super PAC and to Republican groups since July in a desperate effort to keep that from happening.

Musk is worth an estimated $966 billion. In 2024, he spent a quarter-billion dollars backing Trump and Republican candidates.

Guardrails Action bills itself as “a nonpartisan advocacy organization fighting for common-sense AI accountability — protecting workers, families, and democracy from unchecked AI power.”

Evidence has mounted that AI is already causing social harm, and luminaries such as Bill Gates worry that much worse is already possible.

In addition, it’s causing localized job displacement, and people around the world fear that it will cause big job losses in the future. Experts also worry that AI-driven misinformation and deepfakes pose a serious threat to democracy.

Some people working within the industry share those fears so much that dissident OpenAI employees gave $215,000 to support Guardrails Action, Wired reported in July.

The group’s mission statement was posted before the most recent report on Musk’s political spending.

“A small group of Silicon Valley billionaires is spending over $125 million to elect politicians who will block AI safety laws — and hand control of the most powerful technology ever built to a handful of unaccountable companies,” it said. “Guardrails Action organizes workers, parents, and citizens to fight back. We believe AI can be transformative and good — but only if it’s built with accountability, transparency, and democratic oversight.”

Husted’s office didn’t respond to questions for this story.

Charlie Blaettler, political director of Guardrails Action parent organization Guardrails Alliance, said the massive spending by Big Tech is aimed at keeping Congress from regulating AI. It also shows that the industry knows how unpopular it is, he said.

“The AI industry realizes they have a political problem on their hands, and they never met a problem they didn’t think they could solve just by throwing money at it,” Blaettler said in an interview.

After getting hundreds of millions from Big Tech leaders, Trump last month agreed to allow the companies to regulate themselves. Blaettler said tech oligarchs need to be regulated.

“This agreement demonstrates the extent of the rot and corruption in this administration, where many of the AI executives who are party to this agreement have funded Trump’s super PACs, his inauguration, his pet projects,” he said.

“You have Silicon Valley billionaires who are spending millions of dollars to do anything Donald Trump wants. In exchange they’re getting to set the regulations for their own industry. No industry should be allowed to set the regulations for itself — let alone the technology that is the most transformative that humans have ever known.”