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Elon Musk donates to Barry Moore in US Senate race in Alabama
The world’s richest man donated to an Alabama congressman running for an open U.S. Senate seat.
Elon Musk donated twice in 2025 to Barry Moore, a congressman who is running for Senate. The contributions total $6,600 – a tiny fraction of Musk’s overall campaign contributions in the past year.
Moore will face Steve Marshall, Jared Hudson and other Republican candidates in a primary on May 19. The seat is being vacated by Tommy Tuberville, who is running for governor.
The donations, reported on April 1, 2025, occurred as Congress was wrangling votes for Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which Musk opposed.
Moore initially told journalists he was “undecided” on the legislation, but ended up voting in support of it in May. Trump signed the megabill in July 2025.
“This vote on the budget resolution is an opportunity for us to show the American people we are united and ready to enact President Trump’s America First agenda,” Moore said after the vote.
Moore’s campaign did not respond to an AL.com request for comment about whether Moore met with Musk in 2025 or has discussed work with any of his companies in Alabama.
Musk opposed the Big Beautiful Bill and called it a “disgusting abomination.” He said he would work to primary Republicans who voted for it. One target was Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky.
He does not appear to have donated to Moore’s challengers in Alabama.
SpaceX has a small presence in Huntsville and supports some NASA projects at the Marshall Space Flight Center. But competitors BlueOrigin, United Launch Alliance and the Space Launch System are much more established.
Musk was the biggest individual donor to political committees during the 2024 election cycle, spending roughly $290 million, mostly through his own super PAC, America PAC, according to POLITICO. Most of that spending was in support of Trump.
After his 2025 feud with Trump and the end of his DOGE project, Musk swore off political donations.
But records show he came back to the table at the end of 2025 and continued to give money to Republican Super PACS.
He gave $5 million in December to each of the Congressional Leadership Fund and Senate Leadership Fund, two groups that aim to help the GOP keep control of Congress in 2026.