History. 4 of 5: Uihlein, Yass, Griffin and Adelson in 2024 gave new money between 1 October and the vote; Soros 2022 gave nothing new before the vote. Stand-in actor: other donors, not Musk.
Hunch. In 2024 Elon Musk kept giving to his own group until 31 October, days before the vote.
The before-the-vote market resolves on FEC records on 3 December 2026: YES if reports filed by then show a gift dated 1 October to 3 November 2026 from Musk, his trust or another donor name tied to him, to the same kind of Republican group. A gift dated after 3 November does not count, and Reuters and The Independent settle it if FEC pages do not open.
We looked for cases where one person had given more than $50m to groups backing one party by 30 September of an election year, as FEC reports show. We found five such donors in 2022 and 2024 who had also given big sums at earlier elections and ran a group of their own. Four of them gave in 2024, the year of a presidential election.