Elon Musk Donates $158 Million to Super PAC Supporting Texas Senate Candidate Ken Paxton

The takes

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  Adam Smith

  1723–1790, Scotland (the Scottish Enlightenment: Kirkcaldy, Glasgow, Edinburgh)

  When One Purse Drowns a Chorus of Citizens

  A single fortune pouring $158 million into one Senate race is not free speech enlarged but the price system of politics hopelessly distorted against the public.

  The figures before us are, even to one long accustomed to reckon millions, astonishing. In a contest for a Senate seat in Texas, more than $158 million in outside spending now supports one candidate. We are told that the largest share of this torrent comes from one of the world’s richest men, who in a single month sent $158 million to a political fund, which immediately passed it on to a group backing that candidate. The rival, perceiving the disproportion, has likened himself to David set against Goliath. When the sling-stone of argument must contend with the siege engines of treasure, we may doubt whether the field remains a fair one.

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  John Locke

  1632–1704, England (writing amid the Exclusion Crisis and the Glorious Revolution)

  When One Man’s Money Drowns a Million Voices

  A single fortune poured into one Senate race is not generosity in politics; it is power without consent, and therefore power without right.

  I read that, in Texas, more than $158 million in outside money now presses down upon a single Senate contest, much of it flowing in one great torrent from the hands of the world’s richest man, passed through a super PAC, and delivered to a group favouring one candidate over another. The opposing campaign calls itself David against Goliath. The phrase is arresting, but I am less concerned with the stature of the two men who stand on the ballot, and more with the giant who never appears upon it, yet swings his purse as a kind of invisible club. Where so much money speaks, one must ask whose voice the government will, in practice, obey.

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  Niccolò Machiavelli

  1469–1527, Florence (republican secretary and diplomat, then exile, amid the Italian Wars)

  When One Man’s Money Becomes Another Man’s Arms

  A Senate race where an outsider pours $158 million into a super PAC is not corruption of the game; it is the game laid bare, and both sides are forced to fight on those terms or perish.

  Begin from the fact, not the sermon. According to filings, Elon Musk sends $158 million in September to a super PAC, which immediately passes it to a group backing Ken Paxton against James Talarico. Republican leadership adds more, so that the Democrat now runs under a rain of over $158 million in outside spending, much of it from the world’s richest man. This is not a metaphor. It is artillery. Those who faint at the sum confuse their own nerves with political physics. As I wrote in *The Prince* (Marriott’s translation), men judge more by the eye than the hand; here, the hand writes checks, and the eye sees endless advertisements.

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