WASHINGTON: Elon Musk gave around $75 million to his pro-Donald Trump spending group in the span of three months, federal disclosures showed on Tuesday, underscoring how the billionaire has become crucial to the Republican candidate’s efforts to win the Nov. 5 presidential election.
America PAC, which is focused on turning out voters in closely contested states that could decide the election, spent around $72 million of that in the July-September period, according to disclosures filed to the Federal Election Commission.
That is more than any other pro-Trump super PAC focused on turning out voters. The Trump campaign is broadly reliant on outside groups for canvassing voters, meaning the super PAC founded by Musk — the world’s richest man — plays an outsized role in the razor-thin election between Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris.
Musk, the CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla, was the sole donor to the group in that period.
Musk, who has said he has voted for Democratic presidential candidates in the past, has taken a sharp turn to the right this election. He endorsed Trump in July and appeared with him at a rally in Pennsylvania earlier this month.
On Wednesday, Musk said in a post on X that he will be “giving a series of talks” throughout Pennsylvania, less than two weeks after his appearance with Trump in the state.
He said people only needed to sign a petition on his America PAC website to attend his talks from “tomorrow night through Monday.”
Reuters reported, quoting a source, last week that Musk planned more campaigning for Trump in Pennsylvania, considered a crucial state for both Trump and his Democratic opponent Harris in the race for the White House.
Musk’s donations to America PAC propel him into the exclusive club of Republican mega donors, a list that also includes banking heir Timothy Mellon and casino billionaire Miriam Adelson.
However, Reuters reported earlier this month that Musk has secretly funded a conservative political group for years, well before his public embrace of Trump.
America PAC declined to comment on the Musk donations. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
America PAC is focused on encouraging Americans who like Trump but don’t always vote to cast ballots this cycle, a high-risk, labor-intensive strategy by the Trump campaign.
The group, which started its work later in the election than other PACs, has encountered some problems with hiring and its contractors. Since July, it has fired two major contractors it has hired to knock on doors.
It has also struggled to hire door knockers in several battleground states in part because by the time the PAC became operational many other canvassing groups had already staffed up, a half-dozen sources briefed on the issues told Reuters.
The group had around $4 million left on hand by the end of September, the filings show.
Separate filings earlier on Tuesday showed that Miriam Adelson, the casino magnate, donated $95 million to another pro-Trump super PAC, Preserve America PAC, in the same period.
Musk gave $75 million to pro-Trump group, becoming a Republican mega donor
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Musk gave $75 million to pro-Trump group, becoming a Republican mega donor
Kremlin, commenting on Zelensky’s ‘victory plan,’ says Ukraine needs to ‘sober up’
- Volodymyr Zelensky’s five-point ‘victory plan’ calls for an unconditional invitation for Kyiv to join NATO and a strategic non-nuclear deterrent package for Ukraine, among other things
Zelensky on Wednesday presented his five-point “victory plan” which he said called for an unconditional invitation for Kyiv to join NATO and a strategic non-nuclear deterrent package for Ukraine among other things.
Addressing parliament, the Ukrainian leader said that it could be possible to end the conflict with Russia no later than next year if his plan was implemented now.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Ukrainian plan was probably a “camouflaged” US plan which he said was about using Kyiv to fight against Russia “until the last Ukrainian.”
“But there could be a different plan there, which could be really peaceful, which is for the Kyiv regime to realize the futility of the policies they are pursuing and to realize the need to sober up and realize the causes that led to this conflict,” Peskov said.
Russia remains staunchly opposed to Ukraine joining NATO.
Washington, which has provided billions of dollars of arms and aid to Ukraine, has said it’s up to Kyiv how it deals with Russia.
US officials who resigned over Biden’s Gaza policy form new lobby group
- New political action committee to advocate for a revamp of Washington’s long-standing stance on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict
WASHINGTON: Two US officials who resigned last year in protest over President Joe Biden’s policy on the Gaza war have launched a lobbying organization and a political action committee to advocate for a revamp of Washington’s long-standing stance on the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.
Josh Paul, a former State Department official and Tariq Habash, who used to work as a policy adviser at the US Department of Education, said the American public is no longer in favor of unconditionally sending US weapons to Israel but that elected officials have lagged behind.
Their PAC, called “A New Policy,” would support candidates whose position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict center on aligning US policies with human rights and equality and would ensure US arms transfers to all countries in the Middle East including Israel comply with both US and international law.
Washington’s unwavering support for Israel’s military operations in Gaza and more recently in Lebanon has emerged as a key reason for why Muslim and Arab voters, who resoundingly had backed Biden in 2020, may withhold their votes from Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in the upcoming election.
“American voters are clear: they do not want to be complicit in this humanitarian catastrophe and a majority want an end to the transfer of lethal weapons that are used to kill Palestinian civilians,” Habbash said.
Many Muslims and Arabs in the US have urged Biden to call for a permanent ceasefire. Harris faces Republican former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5 in what polls show to be a tight presidential race.
The US is Israel’s largest weapons supplier and has provided it with billions of dollars in military aid since Oct. 7, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping 250 others, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s relentless retaliatory offensive of the densely-populated Gaza Strip, which was home to 2.3 million people, has reduced the enclave to a wasteland, with hundreds of thousands of people repeatedly displaced. More than 42,000 people have been killed, according to Palestinian health officials.
Nigeria fuel tanker explosion kills almost 100: police
KANO: A fuel tanker explosion in northern Nigeria has killed at least 94 people and left 50 injured, police said on Wednesday.
Many of the victims had been trying to collect fuel spilt on the road after the tanker crashed in northern Jigawa state late on Tuesday, police spokesman Lawan Shiisu Adam told AFP.
The tanker had veered to avoid colliding with a truck in the town of Majia, he said.
“We have so far confirmed 94 people dead and around 50 injured,” he said, warning the death toll could rise.
Following the crash, residents crowded around the vehicle, collecting fuel that had spilled on the road and in drains, Adam said.
He said the residents had “overwhelmed” officers trying to stop them.
The Nigerian Medical Association has urged doctors to rush to nearby emergency rooms to help with the influx of patients.
Fuel tanker explosions are common in Africa’s most populous nation, where roads can be poorly maintained and residents often look to siphon off fuel following accidents.
Indian airplane forced to divert after latest bomb hoax
- The Akasa Air flight was flying from India’s capital New Delhi to the southern city of Bengaluru
- The aircraft received ‘a security alert’ and the flight was ordered to return as a ‘precaution’
BENGALURU, India: An Indian passenger aircraft was diverted on Wednesday after the latest in a string of hoax bomb threats made to airline companies involving the country.
The Akasa Air flight, which was flying from India’s capital New Delhi to the southern city of Bengaluru, “received a security alert” and the flight was ordered to return as a “precaution.”
Akasa Air said emergency response teams were monitoring the situation and that the captain had followed “all required emergency procedures for a safe landing in Delhi.”
The flight had 184 people on board, including three infants, the airline said.
There was no immediate response from India’s civil aviation authorities.
Local media and airlines have reported at least six other such threats this week.
Singapore scrambled fighter jets on Tuesday to escort an Air India Express plane after an email warning about a possible bomb on board, the city-state’s defense minister said.
Two F-15 jets were deployed to escort the aircraft “away from populated areas” before it landed safely at Changi Airport late on Tuesday.
Air India also said on Tuesday one of its planes from New Delhi to Chicago had to make an emergency landing in Canada because of “a security threat posted online.” That flight also landed safely.
Similar hoaxes were received this week by India’s low-cost operator IndiGo regarding two flights that were to take off, to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and to Muscat in Oman, according to Indian media.
Five years after losing special status, Kashmir gets a largely powerless government
- The region has been on edge since 2019, with civil liberties curbed and media freedoms restricted
- There will be a limited transfer of power from New Delhi that will remain Kashmir’s main legislator
SRINAGAR: Leaders of Indian-administered Kashmir’s biggest political party were sworn into office Wednesday to run a largely powerless government after the first local election since India stripped the disputed region of its special status five years ago.
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah will be the region’s chief minister after his party won the most seats in the three-phased election. It has support from India’s main opposition Congress party, although Congress decided not to be a part of the new government for now.
The vote was Kashmir’s first in a decade and the first since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government scrapped the Muslim-majority region’s long-held semi-autonomy in 2019. The National Conference staunchly opposed the move, and its victory is seen as a referendum against the Modi government’s changes.
Lt. Gov. Manoj Sinha, New Delhi’s top administrator in Kashmir, administered the oaths of office to Abdullah and the five members of his council of ministers in a ceremony under tight security at a lakeside venue in the region’s main city of Srinagar. Some of India’s top opposition leaders, including Rahul Gandhi of the Congress party, attended.
However, there will be a limited transfer of power from New Delhi to the local government as Kashmir will remain a “union territory” — directly controlled by the federal government — with India’s Parliament as its main legislator. Kashmir’s statehood would have to be restored for the new government to have powers similar to other states of India.
India and Pakistan each administer a part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. The nuclear-armed rivals have fought two of their three wars over the territory since they gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.
Kashmir’s last assembly election in 2014 brought to power Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, the first time ruled in a coalition with the local Peoples Democratic Party. The government collapsed in 2018, after the BJP withdrew from the coalition and New Delhi took the region under its direct control.
A year later, the federal government downgraded and divided the former state into two centrally governed union territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir. The move — which largely resonated in India and among Modi supporters — was mostly opposed in Kashmir as an assault on its identity and autonomy amid fears that it would pave the way for demographic changes in the region.
The region has since been on edge with civil liberties curbed and media freedoms restricted.
Like on election days, authorities on Wednesday limited access of foreign media to the oath ceremony and denied press credentials to most journalists working with international media, including The Associated Press, without citing any reason.
In the recently concluded election, the National Conference won 42 seats, mainly from the Kashmir Valley, the heartland of the anti-India rebellion, while the BJP secured 29 seats, all from the Hindu-dominated areas of Jammu. The Congress succeeded in six constituencies.
Militants in the Indian-administered portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.
Experts say the new government, stripped of all the essential powers, would face a daunting task to fulfil its election promises against huge public expectations to resist the 2019 changes and the federal government’s tight control.
Praveen Donthi, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said the region’s political vacuum of the last few years will not vanish with the polls alone.
“The Modi government should build on it by restoring full statehood and empowering the government,” said Donthi. “Otherwise, it will intensify disaffection and is a set up for failure.”
Modi and his powerful home minister, Amit Shah, have repeatedly stated that the region’s statehood will be restored after the election, without specifying a timeline. However, they vowed to block any move aimed at undoing the 2019 changes but promised to help in the region’s economic development.
For the new chief minister, meanwhile, it’s going to be a tightrope walk.
“As a pro-India politician at the helm of this powerless administration, Omar Abdullah knows his limitations,” Donthi said. “He would be looking at his job as a buffer to moderate the worst instincts of New Delhi, but he would be clutching at straws.”
