WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk, a tech mogul who is the world's richest person, plunged more than $70 million into helping Donald Trump and other Republicans win in November's election, making him one of the biggest donors to GOP causes this campaign season, according to campaign finance disclosures released this week.
Musk made the donation over the summer to America PAC, a super political action committee he launched in May to aid Trump in his bid to return to the White House. It quickly became a central player in Trump's election effort.
“The America PAC is just aiming for common sense, centrist values,” the Space X and Tesla founder said Tuesday on his social media platform X, shortly after the sum of money he contributed was made public in a campaign finance filing.
Super PACs like Musk's America PAC can raise and spend unlimited sums of money but are typically are forbidden from coordinating their efforts with the candidates they support. A recent opinion by the Federal Election Commission, which regulates federal political campaigns, allowed for candidates and these big-spending groups to work together on so-called ground game efforts, which are the armies of people deployed to knock on doors to help turn out the vote.
While candidates and political parties have traditionally organized and paid for such efforts, Trump's campaign has struggled to raise money this year and has turned to a handful of outside groups to undertake the work, with Musk's America PAC being top among them.
But in doing so, the campaign has outsourced a core function to a coterie of untested groups that operate independently. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ’ decision to have an outside group canvass for him was is said to be one of the reasons his presidential bid failed.
So far, America PAC has spent over $38 million on voter “canvassing” efforts, according to campaign finance disclosures.
Much of America PACs money has been paid to a handful of consulting firms, including a number that are linked to Phil Cox, a former presidential campaign aide to DeSantis and a onetime executive director of the Republican Governors Association. Businesses under the umbrella of Cox’s various companies have collected at least $21 million since August, records show.
Trump's outsourcing much of his get-out-the-vote effort is not the only unorthodox strategy his campaign has adopted this year. His campaign and allies have also jettisoned the traditional approach toward getting out the vote, which typically focused on winning over independent or moderate voters to your side. Instead, they are trying to drive turnout among Trump supporters who seldom cast a ballot, a novel if risky approach.
Though Musk is America PAC's top donor, he is not its only one. The super PAC also collected about $8.75 million from a handful of wealthy donors, including the Winklevoss twins, Tyler and Cameron, the disputed creators of Facebook.
The super PAC has spent nearly $80 million this year. Though most of the spending has gone toward the presidential race, at least $5 million has been spent to help Republican House candidates.
Elon Musk jumps on the stage as Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas state board on Wednesday declined to stop what could be the first execution in the U.S. in a case tied to the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome, rejecting clemency pleas from a man whose claims of innocence have drawn wide support, including from Republican lawmakers and a detective who say the conviction was based on faulty science.
The parole board voted unanimously, 6-0, to not recommend that Robert Roberson’s death sentence be commuted to life in prison or that his execution be delayed.
The decision is a major setback for efforts by Roberson's attorneys and a diverse coalition of individuals and groups to stop his lethal injection on Thursday. Roberson, who has long proclaimed his innocence, has few options left.
Gov. Greg Abbott can only grant clemency after receiving a recommendation from the board. Abbott does have the power to grant a one-time 30-day reprieve without a board recommendation. All members of the board are appointed by the governor.
But in his nearly 10 years as governor, Abbott has halted only one imminent execution, in 2018 when he spared the life of Thomas Whitaker, who had masterminded the fatal shootings of his mother and brother. Abbott said he commuted the sentence in part because Whitaker's father, who survived the shooting, indicated he would be victimized again if the state put to death his last remaining immediate family member.
Earlier Wednesday, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied another request from Roberson to stay his execution. Roberson’s attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay his execution.
Roberson, 57, was condemned for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine.
“We urge Governor Abbott to grant a reprieve of 30 days to allow litigation to continue and have a court hear the overwhelming new medical and scientific evidence that shows Robert Roberson’s chronically ill, two-year-old daughter, Nikki, died of natural and accidental causes, not abuse," said Gretchen Sween, one of Roberson's attorneys.
A spokesperson for Abbott did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment Wednesday.
One of those who has been pushing to stop Roberson’s execution is Texas GOP megadonor and conservative activist Doug Deason.
“I believe he is innocent,” Deason wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.
Deason told the Houston Chronicle he has been talking directly with Abbott’s general counsel, James Sullivan, and two other Abbott staff members in recent weeks about Roberson’s case.
The parole board’s decision came on the same day as a Texas House committee met in Austin to discuss his case.
Brian Wharton, the lead detective with Palestine police who investigated Curtis’ death, told members of the Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee he feels shame for playing a role in Roberson’s conviction. He called on Abbott to halt Roberson's execution.
“Don’t make my mistake. Listen to Robert. Hear his voice wherever you can find him, on the pages of all those documents you have from his attorney. But listen and you will hear innocence,” Wharton told members of the committee, most of whom are part of a bipartisan group of more than 80 state lawmakers, including at least 30 Republicans, who had asked the parole board and Abbott to stop the execution.
Roberson’s scheduled execution has renewed debate over shaken baby syndrome, which is known in the medical community as abusive head trauma.
His lawyers as well as the Texas lawmakers, medical experts and others say his conviction was based on faulty and now outdated scientific evidence related to shaken baby syndrome. The diagnosis refers to a serious brain injury caused when a child’s head is hurt through shaking or some other violent impact, like being slammed against a wall or thrown on the floor.
Roberson’s supporters don’t deny head and other injuries from child abuse are real. But they say doctors misdiagnosed Curtis’ injuries as being related to shaken baby syndrome and that new evidence has shown the girl died not from abuse but from complications related to severe pneumonia.
Roberson’s attorneys say he was wrongly arrested and later convicted after taking his daughter to a hospital. They say she had fallen out of bed in Roberson’s home after being seriously ill for a week. His lawyers say the short fall from the bed would have explained the only injury, a minor one, that a defense expert later found on the girl’s head.
Roberson’s lawyers have also suggested his autism, which was undiagnosed at the time of his daughter’s death, was used against him as authorities became suspicious of him because of his lack of emotion over what had happened to her. Autism impacts how people communicate and interact with others.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, other medical organizations and prosecutors say the diagnosis is valid and that doctors look at all possible things, including any illnesses, when determining if injuries were attributable to shaken baby syndrome.
The Anderson County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecuted Roberson, has said in court documents that after a 2022 hearing to consider the new evidence in the case, a judge rejected the theories that pneumonia and other diseases caused Curtis’ death.
The parole board has recommended clemency in a death row case only six times since the state resumed executions in 1982. In three of those cases — in 1998, 2007 and 2018 — death row inmates had their sentences commuted to life in prison within days of their scheduled executions. In two of the cases — from 2004 and 2009 — then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry rejected the parole board’s recommendation to commute a death sentence to life in prison and the two prisoners were executed.
In 2019, the parole board recommended a 120-day reprieve for Rodney Reed, just days before his scheduled execution. But the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals stayed Reed’s execution before Abbott could take any action on the board’s recommendation.
Roberson's scheduled execution would come less than a month after Missouri put to death Marcellus Williams amid lingering questions about his guilt and whether his death sentence should have instead been commuted to life in prison. Williams was convicted in the 1998 killing of Lisha Gayle, a social worker and former St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter.
Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70
Elizabeth Ramirez, center, Casandra Rivera, center right, and Anna Vasquez, second from right, of the "San Antonio 4" group, deliver boxes with petitions in the Texas State capitol for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott seeking the pardoning of Robert Roberson's execution, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024, in Austin, Texas. Roberson, 57, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Oct. 17, for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence. (AP Photo/Nadia Lathan)
Casandra Rivera, left, Anna Vasquez, second from left, and Elizabeth Ramirez, center, of the "San Antonio 4" group, hold boxes with petitions being delivered in the Texas State capitol for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott seeking the pardoning of Robert Roberson's execution, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024 in Austin, Texas. Roberson, 57, is scheduled to receive a lethal injection on Oct. 17, for the 2002 killing of his 2-year-old daughter, Nikki Curtis, in the East Texas city of Palestine. Roberson has long proclaimed his innocence. (AP Photo/Nadia Lathan)
FILE - Texas lawmakers meet with Robert Roberson at a prison in Livingston, Texas, Sept. 27, 2024. (Criminal Justice Reform Caucus via AP, File)
