Who Pays For Power? Inside The Dark-Money Networks Funding US Midterms

The money trail running into America’s November 3 midterm elections leads from Silicon Valley boardrooms and cryptocurrency exchanges to political committees spending millions on television advertisements, digital campaigns and voter outreach.

Some donors want Congress to loosen the rules around artificial intelligence. Others are betting on lawmakers who will be friendlier to crypto. And a handful of billionaires are pouring fortunes into the battle for control of Congress.

Elon Musk has emerged as the biggest individual donor in the cycle, giving about $446 million to political causes, mostly to help Republicans retain their congressional majorities, according to a report by The Washington Post.

Meanwhile, companies and executives in cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence have built rival spending networks around the legislation that could shape their industries. The question is not simply who writes the cheques, but which political organisations receive them and what voters can see of the journey.

Billionaires Behind The Ballot

Musk’s money has travelled through several Republican-aligned channels. His contributions include roughly $216 million to America PAC, which backs Republican candidates and voter-turnout operations, $168 million to the Senate Leadership Fund, which supports Republican Senate candidates, and $30 million to the Congressional Leadership Fund, which backs House Republicans, according to the WP report.

His latest donations have helped finance efforts to preserve Republican control of Congress, including spending around Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton.

Notably, the Republican funding network extends well beyond Musk. Shipping magnates Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, financier Jeff Yass and casino magnate Steve Wynn are among the wealthy donors supporting conservative political causes.

On the Democratic side, billionaire investor George Soros has backed aligned political organisations, while former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg has directed substantial money towards House Democrats. Their contributions flow through different committees and organisations, illustrating how the contest for Congress is also a contest between wealthy patrons seeking to shape policy from opposite sides of the aisle.

The money is not confined to established party networks. Crypto firms Ripple, Coinbase and Crypto.com have become major corporate political spenders.

A Public Citizen analysis of federal disclosures, reported by The Block, found that crypto companies had contributed about $189 million towards the 2026 midterms by the middle of the year. Much of the money went to Fairshake, the industry-focused super PAC, and MAGA Inc., the Trump-aligned super PAC.

Fairshake and its affiliated groups have backed candidates viewed as supportive of crypto policy and spent against some opponents, including Democrats who have challenged the industry’s preferred regulatory approach.

AI And Crypto Are Buying A Place In The Debate

Artificial intelligence has opened another front in campaign spending. Leading the Future, a pro-AI political network, has drawn money from venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, as well as OpenAI president Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna.

The group has supported candidates who favour a national framework for AI regulation and oppose rules that could slow the industry’s development. Among the candidates it has backed are Republican Andy Barr, running for the Senate in Kentucky, and Republican Julia Letlow, who is running for the Senate in Louisiana. OpenAI has said Brockman’s political donations were made in a personal capacity and that outside groups do not speak for the company.

Anthropic has taken a different route.

The company says it has given $40 million to Public First Action to support public education and policy work around AI safeguards. A separate, aligned political network has opposed federal pre-emption proposals that would prevent states from adopting their own AI rules.

The contrast shows that the industry is not united behind one regulatory agenda: competing groups are spending money to influence which approach Congress adopts. The spending also raises a question about how companies seeking a voice in policymaking should distinguish public-interest advocacy from attempts to secure a favourable regulatory environment.

The route taken by the money matters as much as its source. Individuals may contribute up to $3,500 per election to a federal candidate’s campaign in the 2025–26 cycle. Super PACs, by contrast, can accept unlimited sums from individuals, companies and other eligible donors, then spend independently to support or oppose candidates.

They cannot donate directly to candidates or coordinate their independent expenditures with a candidate’s campaign. That is why a donor can give millions to an outside group even though the same amount could not be handed directly to a candidate.

The Money Voters Cannot Always See

Public disclosures reveal much of the political money trail, but not necessarily the original source of every dollar. Some nonprofit organisations, including certain groups organised under Section 501(c)(4) of the US tax code, are not generally required to publish a complete list of their donors.

They can spend on political advocacy, subject to applicable rules, and may channel money to political committees. When a super PAC reports receiving money from a nonprofit, the filing can identify that organisation without revealing the individuals or companies that supplied its funds. This is the central problem commonly described as “dark money”.

The distinction is important: dark money does not mean that every expenditure is illegal or that all spending is secret. Super PACs must report their receipts and independent expenditures, while disclosure rules for the organisations supplying their money can differ.

The result, however, is that voters may be able to see which committee paid for an advertisement without being able to trace the funds back to their ultimate source. As the final weeks of the campaign unfold, that gap leaves a basic question hanging over the election: how much influence can voters measure when they cannot always see who paid for it?