Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, has given more than $445 million to political groups ahead of the November 3 US midterm elections, a sum American law allows because its courts treat political spending as a form of free speech. India, the UK, Canada and Germany regulate political money in other ways.
That total includes $77 million in the first two weeks of October to America PAC, Musk’s own super PAC, Bloomberg reported. A super PAC is a political committee that can raise and spend unlimited sums to support or oppose candidates, as long as it does not give money to the candidates or coordinate with their campaigns. America PAC, for example, has spent millions of dollars on canvassing, phone calls, text messages and mailers ahead of the midterms.
President Donald Trump said in September that he planned to put $400 million to $500 million from MAGA Inc, his super PAC, into helping Republicans. “This is money from MAGA Inc. This is money that I control,” he told reporters, Reuters reported.
The money in 2026
The Republican Party, its congressional super PACs and MAGA Inc had raised $2.1 billion by October 14, compared with $1.4 billion raised by the corresponding Democratic committees, Bloomberg reported.
{{/usCountry}}The Republican Party, its congressional super PACs and MAGA Inc had raised $2.1 billion by October 14, compared with $1.4 billion raised by the corresponding Democratic committees, Bloomberg reported.
{{/usCountry}}On the Democratic side, Michael Bloomberg, the former New York mayor who is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News, had given $52.6 million by October 21, according to an AFP analysis of the US Federal Election Commission (FEC) data. His team told The New York Times he would spend $80 million in September and October.
Among prominent Indian-American donors, the money has tilted towards Republicans. An HT analysis of FEC data found that they had given more than $15.8 million to Republican-linked committees since 2025, compared with about $3.7 million to Democrats.
Money for campaigns
American federal law caps the amount an individual can give a candidate. For the 2025-26 election cycle, the limit is $3,500 per election, and a primary and a general election count as separate elections. An individual can also give up to $44,300 a year to a national party committee and $5,000 a year to a traditional political action committee (PAC), which collects money and passes it on to candidates and other political committees.
Companies, trade unions and foreign nationals cannot give money directly to a candidate’s campaign. A campaign can, however, accept money from PACs that companies and unions set up.
The caps do not apply to super PACs. Because a super PAC spends money on its own and doesn’t hand it to a candidate, it can accept unlimited sums from individuals, companies and unions. It cannot accept money from foreign nationals or federal government contractors.
Donations to these committees are public. Committees must report the name of every donor whose contributions add up to more than $200 in a calendar year, or over an election cycle in the case of a candidate’s committee.
Some non-profit groups, however, can spend on politics without disclosing their donors. Their spending is often called “dark money”.
Also read: How the Supreme Court Is Shaping the Midterm Elections
No ceiling
After the Watergate scandal, the US Congress in 1974 tightened the Federal Election Campaign Act, setting limits on both contributions and spending, and creating the FEC to enforce the law.
In 1976, in a case called Buckley v Valeo, the Supreme Court upheld the limits on contributions and struck down the limits on spending. The court treated a cap on what a donor gives a candidate as a lesser restriction, justified by the risk that large gifts could be traded for political favours. A cap on spending was another matter. “A restriction on the amount of money a person or group can spend on political communication during a campaign necessarily reduces the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached,” the court said.
The US Congress in 2002 passed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which curbed “soft money”, donations to parties that fell outside federal limits, and barred companies and unions from using their own funds for broadcast ads naming a candidate shortly before an election.
On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Citizens United v FEC that companies and unions could spend unlimited amounts from their own funds on political messages, provided the spending was independent of candidates. The court held that such independent spending did not give rise to corruption or the appearance of it.
Two months later, a federal appeals court in Washington applied that reasoning to groups that only spend independently. In SpeechNow.org v FEC, it ruled that donations to such groups could not be capped. The FEC then allowed these committees to accept unlimited contributions from individuals, companies and unions, and they became known as super PACs.
In other democracies
India caps the amount candidates spend. A Lok Sabha candidate in a larger state can spend up to ₹95 lakh, and an assembly candidate up to ₹40 lakh. In smaller states and some Union territories, the limits are ₹75 lakh and ₹28 lakh, the government told Parliament in 2022.
Candidates must keep accounts of their election spending and submit them after the results, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI). The law does not cap a party’s overall spending, but parties must report donations totalling more than ₹20,000 from any one donor in a year to the ECI under the Representation of the People Act.
In February 2024, the Supreme Court struck down the electoral bonds scheme, which had allowed individuals and companies to give money to political parties without their identities being made public.
The UK caps what parties spend in the run-up to a general election. A party can spend £54,010 for each constituency it contests, over the 365 days ending on polling day, under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. There is no general cap on donations. They must come from sources the law permits, and foreign donations are banned. Parties must report donations totalling more than £11,180 from a single donor in a year to the Electoral Commission, the independent body that regulates political finance in the UK. The threshold for a party’s local branches is £2,230.
Canada limits both who can give and how much. Under the Canada Elections Act, only citizens and permanent residents can donate to federal parties and candidates, which means companies and unions cannot. In 2026, an individual can give up to C$1,775 a year to each registered federal party, and up to C$1,775 in total to a party’s candidates, nomination contestants and local associations. Parties and candidates also face spending limits during elections. The state repays part of what they spend: a party that wins at least 2% of the national vote, or 5% in the constituencies where it fielded candidates, gets back half its election expenses, and a candidate who wins or takes at least 10% of the vote gets back 60%.
Germany pays parties from public funds and does not have any limit on donations. Under Germany’s Political Parties Act, the state makes these payments every year, whether or not an election is due, and works out the amount from votes a party has already won. A party qualifies if it took at least 0.5% of the vote at the last European or national election, or 1% at a state election. For 2026, a party would receive €1.24 for each of the first four million votes it won at the most recent European, national and state elections, and €1.02 for each vote beyond that, according to the Bundestag.
The state also matches part of the sums that parties raise from their members and individual donors. Donations from companies are not matched. Total state funding for all parties was capped at about €232 million for 2026, according to the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament.
German parties must name, in their annual reports, every donor who gives more than €10,000 in a year. Any single donation above €35,000 must be reported immediately to the president of the Bundestag, who publishes it.
Also read: The MAHA-MAGA Alliance Is Fracturing Before the Midterms
Back to the US
Every party committee and PAC must file a post-election report with the FEC by December 3, covering the money raised and spent up to November 23. The reports will show how much the committees raised and spent in the final weeks of the campaign and the days after the vote.