Another Problem With Billionaires: Nobody In Texas Is Funding Ken Paxton

Except the richest man in the world

Another Problem With Billionaires: Nobody In Texas Is Funding Ken Paxton

Except the richest man in the world

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #1,017: Sunday, September 6th, 2026

I want to walk you through a sequence of events. Take them in order, because the order is the whole thing.

November 20, 2023. Media Matters publishes a report saying ads for major brands were showing up next to pro-Nazi content on X. Advertisers start walking. Apple. Disney. IBM.

That same day, Elon Musk sues them.

And within hours, the Attorney General of Texas announces an investigation into the same organization.

Not into X. Into the group that wrote about X.

Ken Paxton called them a radical anti-free speech organization…and said he’d look at whether they’d defrauded consumers. Musk applauded the probe publicly.

In May 2025…a federal appeals court panel upheld an injunction blocking that investigation. The panel described the evidence that Paxton had retaliated against the group for its reporting as uncontested.

Uncontested. That’s a court’s word…not mine.

Now…here’s the part from this week.

Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee for United States Senate in Texas. And…Elon Musk’s America PAC just spent about $248,000 on his race. Roughly $125,000 boosting Paxton…about $123,000 attacking his opponent, James Talarico.

It was America PAC’s first spending of the entire year. Texas got the largest share of any state in the country.

Let Me Argue Against Myself First

I’m not going to pretend this is simpler than it is.

Talarico has more money.

A lot more. He’s raised roughly $72 million this cycle to Paxton’s $16.8 million. If your objection is that too much money is flooding this race… the larger pile is currently on the Democratic side.

The amount is small.

A quarter million dollars is a rounding error in a Texas Senate race. Musk spends that on lunch. This isn’t the story because of the sum.

And…Paxton has never been convicted of anything.

The Texas House impeached him in 2023. The Texas Senate acquitted him. His decade-old securities fraud charges were resolved through a pretrial diversion agreement…and dismissed. He is entitled to every bit of that, and I’m not going to write around it.

So…why does this matter?

Because Of What The Money Is Doing

Here’s the number that tells you everything.

As of August 20, Talarico’s campaign had spent more than $25 million on advertising since the general election began.

Paxton’s campaign had spent $119,000.

Read that again. Not $119 million. Not $11.9 million. One hundred nineteen thousand dollars, in Texas…in a Senate race…over roughly three months.

Ken Paxton is not being funded by Texas Republicans. He raised $16.8 million in the second-largest state in the country as the sitting Attorney General…with the President’s endorsement. In modern Senate terms…that’s nothing.

His own side looked at him and mostly kept their wallets closed. That’s a signal. It’s the clearest signal a party’s donors can send.

And…Musk’s money exists to cancel it.

Billionaire money doesn’t just amplify a candidate. It overrides the verdict everybody else already reached.

That’s the part people miss when they argue about campaign finance. We talk about it… like it’s a volume knob…like rich donors make loud candidates…louder. That’s not what’s happening here.

What’s happening here…is that a man his own party wouldn’t finance…gets kept upright by an outside checkbook. The market spoke. One guy….has enough money to buy the market a new opinion.

Musk reportedly authorized his PAC to spend north of $100 million this cycle. He met with Speaker Mike Johnson on Monday. The $248,000 isn’t the investment. It’s the receipt…for the first shipment.

Now The Paxton Part

Set the money aside and look at the man being purchased into a Senate seat.

Paxton’s impeachment wasn’t brought by Democrats. The Texas House that impeached him…was controlled by Republicans…and it voted overwhelmingly.

The whistleblowers weren’t opposition researchers. They were eight…of his own senior deputies…who went to the FBI about their boss.

He was acquitted. Fine. But…understand what his own people believed about him strongly enough…to torch their careers over.

And then look at the Media Matters episode again…because that’s the one that actually matters for a Senate seat.

That wasn’t corruption in the ordinary sense. Nobody handed him a bag of cash. It was something more useful to a billionaire: a public official who pointed the legal machinery of a state government…at somebody who wrote an unflattering story about a company he liked.

That is the qualification. Not the scandal. The qualification.

Now…move that man from Attorney General of one state…to United States Senator…where he gets confirmation votes on federal judges…subpoena power…and a seat at the table on every regulatory question that touches Tesla…SpaceX and X…all three of which are headquartered in Texas.

The relationship doesn’t end when he changes offices. It gets a bigger jurisdiction.

One Thing I’m Asking

Don’t share the outrage. Share the two numbers.

Twenty-five million dollars versus one hundred nineteen thousand dollars. That’s what a candidate’s own supporters were willing to spend on him…against what his opponent’s were.

Send that to somebody in Texas. Not a political junkie. Somebody who votes and doesn’t follow this closely, and who might assume Paxton has broad support because he’s on their television constantly this month.

He doesn’t. He has one donor…with a lot of money…and a specific interest in who becomes senator.

That’s a very different thing…and most people…don’t know it yet.

#HoldFast

Back soon.

-Jack
Jack Hopkins

P.S. Notice where the money went. All of America PAC’s disclosed spending was earmarked for printing. Mailers…yard signs…flyers. Not television. Printing doesn’t move a poll in a state of thirty million people. Printing tests logistics…builds lists…and proves out a distribution operation. Nobody spends a quarter million dollars on flyers as the finish. You spend it as the rehearsal.

Sources

The spending

• Texas Tribune — “Elon Musk’s super PAC starts spending to boost Ken Paxton in Texas” — the $248,000 figure, the “printing” earmark, the fundraising totals, and the polling note

• CNBC — “Elon Musk starts spending his midterm election millions, revealing his key Senate targets” — the $800,475 total, the 90%-to-Senate breakdown, the AdImpact ad-spending comparison, and the Mike Johnson meeting

• Fox News — “Musk picks his first GOP warriors as a 2026 money surge takes shape” — the Aug. 19–31 window and the $125,000 / $123,000 support-versus-oppose split

• Federal Election Commission — America PAC independent expenditure filings — the primary source; search independent expenditures for the underlying line items

The Media Matters investigation

• Texas Tribune — “Ken Paxton announces investigation of Media Matters following Elon Musk’s lawsuit” — the same-day timeline and Paxton’s statement

• NBC News — “Media Matters sues Texas attorney general over response to Elon Musk dispute” — the First Amendment retaliation claim and Musk’s public response to the probe

• Courthouse News — “DC Circuit shuts down Texas probe over Media Matters roast of Elon Musk” — the May 2025 panel decision and the “uncontested evidence” finding

Paxton’s record

• Texas House Committee on General Investigating — articles of impeachment — the official record of the May 2023 impeachment; the Texas Legislature Online archive carries the roll call

• Texas Tribune — Ken Paxton topic archive — the whistleblower complaint, the impeachment trial and acquittal, and the securities fraud resolution, in one place.