Inside Elon Musk’s Midterm Spending Spree

Uncanny Valley, Zoë Schiffer and Leah Feiger dive into how Elon Musk’s America PAC is spending millions on the most consequential Senate races of the 2026 midterms—and how most of that money goes to opposing Democrats rather than supporting Republicans. They also break down effective altruism, the once-niche philosophy now at the center of the AI safety debate, and why the Trump administration has called it a dangerous ideology. Plus, they discuss the backlash against the graphic designer who created the logo for Meta’s AI assistant, Muse.

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Articles mentioned in this episode:

• Elon Musk’s America PAC Is Spending Big on the Midterms. We’re Tracking It Daily
• Elon Musk’s America PAC Is Quietly Funding November’s Most Consequential Elections
• Spend Elon Musk’s Money
• She Designed Meta’s New AI Logo. Then Came the Hate

You can follow Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer and Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger. Write to us at [email protected].

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Transcript

Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors.

Leah Feiger: Hey everyone, this is Leah. We wanted to share with you that Uncanny Valley is a finalist for not one or two, but three Signal Awards. The judges pick who wins, but listeners also have a say with the listener's choice vote. You can go to the links we included in the show notes and vote for us. We promise it takes just a minute and your vote goes a long way. OK, onto the show.

Zoë Schiffer: Welcome to WIRED’s Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, contributing editor.

Leah Feiger: And I'm Leah Feiger, director of politics and science. This week we're doing a deep dive into how Elon Musk's America PAC has spent millions of dollars to influence some of the most consequential races this midterm season. WIRED has created a tracker to follow America PAC's support in real time. We're going to take you through why these races matter and how Musk is throwing Republicans all of this cash.

Zoë Schiffer: We're also going to break down the once obscure philosophy that now seems to be everywhere from X threads to The Economist cover, effective altruism. We'll talk about what this ideology is actually all about, why many AI researchers subscribe to it, and how it has been actively shaping the debate around AI safety.

Leah Feiger: And we're going to get into why the designer of Meta's Muse logo has been receiving a ton of backlash. Zoë spoke with her all about it this week and she had a lot to say. Zoë, it's just me and you this week. We've officially pushed Brian off a cliff.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, we have. The FaceTime chat has gone live. We will not be talking about any tech conferences this week.

Leah Feiger: Absolutely not. But he'll be back next week. So at the very least, there's that. OK, Zoë, Elon Musk. He's back.

Zoë Schiffer: He's back. He never left for some.

Leah Feiger: He never really left, but he is back and so is his wallet. To refresh everyone's memories a little bit, Musk is the founder and main donor of America PAC, a super PAC that was started in 2024 to help elect President Donald Trump to the White House. They succeeded. Trump is in office. The PAC spent more than $260 million to make that happen. This time around for November's midterms, the PAC has been going about it a little bit differently. WIRED created a live tracker to monitor their donations in real time. You can check it out on the WIRED website. And we learned a lot putting this together. Basically, the PAC is donating to the election's most consequential races. They are not focusing obviously on the presidential race. There is no presidential race this year. But they are all in on the most critical Senate races in the country that are really going to decide the makeup of Congress next year. The PAC is primarily pumping money against Democrats as opposed to for Republicans, which is really interesting. For every dollar that America PAC has spent supporting a Republican candidate, more than two have gone to oppose a Democrat. And that only becomes more extreme in some of these Senate races, right? In Texas where several Musk companies are based, the group has spent tons and tons of money attacking Democrat James Talarico. We're talking like $9 million. Whereas promoting Ken Paxton, around the one million mark. Similar numbers can be found in the Ohio Senate race, in Iowa, really up and down the board. And these races are not random. They represent the path for Democrats to take control of the chamber this November and could open Republicans, Musk included, up to a lot of investigations and regulatory pressure. So this is critical for so many reasons. I'm so excited to talk with you about it. What did you think of the tracker? Did you get a chance to play around with it?

Zoë Schiffer: I did get a chance to play around with it. I was really impressed, not least because you coding something for the internet, an app and web, honestly, groundbreaking.

Leah Feiger: I can take zero, zero coding credit. This all goes to our amazing investigations team who really knocked it out of the park. They did.

Zoë Schiffer: Well, jokes aside. No, I think it's really important. I mean, like you said, the total spending on America PAC's part is less than what they spent previously, but it's much more targeted. They're being really specific. And that's because the stakes are really high. I feel like we should just back up for a second and talk about that. Because there is this chance that Congress flips, that Democrats take control, and it seems like Musk and his associates are taking that very, very seriously.

Leah Feiger: Oh, as they should. Democrats are already telling us, all of our sourcing in Democrats, both on House and Senate side are hungrily talking about all of the investigations and subpoenas that they're going to release the minute that the chamber is theirs. And right now, the polls are looking pretty good for them. This is very much a, if Dems don't mess this up, they have a very good chance of making this happen. I can only imagine that Musk and a similar coterie of fellows are kind of freaking out right now.

Zoë Schiffer: I mean, I am on the record and I'm going to say it again, I think Republicans are going to do just fine. I feel like we've had this conversation before, and I'm sus on the polling. However, you are the politics director, so ultimately I defer to you. That said, I think it is 100 percent true that Musk takes the possibility of investigations and regulations really, really seriously. This was a primary reason why he ultimately decided to go all in on Donald Trump. He said very publicly that if Kamala Harris won the presidential election during the last cycle, the whole country was going to look like California, which was the worst thing that could happen to it, apparently. As someone from California, I disagree, but neither here nor there. It is really hard to build things here. I'll give you that. That said, I find it very hard to imagine a world where really harsh regulations actually do come down on the Elon Musk empire. I think part of the reason for that is SpaceX, and just how dependent the government is on Starlink, on SpaceX technology, on their ability to get stuff into space. SpaceX is the company doing that on behalf of the government now. And so while I do think subpoenas, all of this stuff could happen, will it impact Elon Musk's empire ultimately? I don't know if we have the tools to hold someone like that accountable at this point, frankly.

Leah Feiger: I think that's a really, really good point, honestly. And obviously there's a clear fear that a Lina Khan-esque figure could come in and wreak havoc. But to your point, that havoc will be paperwork. No, I hear you. I hear you.

Zoë Schiffer: I mean, think about it. The one time he was held accountable in a real way was for saying that he had money to take Tesla private. He had funding secured to take Tesla private. What was the outcome of that? He was fined $20 million? How much is Elon Musk worth? Ultimately, even if that number hurts, he doesn't want to pay it, it's kind of a drop in the bucket.

Leah Feiger: No, he's a trillionaire now, again, I guess. And I guess to that point, this is not the first time that super PACs or big money in politics has stirred up a little bit of controversy. We had this big conversation in 2024 about how crazy it was that Elon Musk was just throwing money at the wall, and now he's throwing money again via America PAC, which now feels like a pattern, and it feels like other tech founders and their influence and their PACs are already outsized in this administration. You have PACs from all sorts of groups up and down Silicon Valley that are very involved this election cycle. I'm really interested in what you're hearing about how folks are thinking about this midterm cycle and how they're kind of thinking more future.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I mean, Silicon Valley is not a monolith. You hear a lot from the really loud voices in the room, and a lot of those voices are people who have gone all in on supporting President Trump and the Republican Party. And I think those people kind of align with Elon Musk in some of the fears that you have said, that there will be investigations, that if Democrats take control, it'll slow growth, that they won't be able to lead the race in AI and these other areas. And so they need to go all in and protect that future that they want to see happen. Of course, there are a lot of rank-and-file employees who have more liberal values, and they are staying a little more quiet, but they are contributing to different causes. It's an interesting conversation in the Valley right now because there are a lot of newly minted millionaires, people who worked in AI research and now have a ton of money, and they are having active conversations on what is the best way to deploy, to allocate capital right now? Where do we put the money to have the biggest effect? Is it in philanthropy? Is it in politics? If it's in politics, where should we contribute? There's not one defining take right now, but it is definitely a topic of conversation. Leah, as you and our listeners both know, the debate over AI safety has been everywhere lately. It has escaped containment in a big way. And in that debate, there is one central philosophy that keeps coming up again and again, and it's starting to become kind of the center of attention, effective altruism. Last month, AI researcher Jacob Coxon loudly voiced support for one of effective altruism's central concerns, that advanced AI could destroy humanity. This kicked off a wave of headlines and a pretty intense response from the Trump administration. Senior Pentagon officials labeled effective altruism as a, quote, unquote, "dangerous ideology" and an official Department of Defense social media account implored people to choose, quote, "Americanism, not effective altruism." So we're really seeing these dividing lines. But Leah, just to back up a little bit, when did you become aware, because you're not in Silicon Valley, you're in New York, when did you learn about effective altruism?

Leah Feiger: What's amazing is I can actually pinpoint it to, I would say, maybe 16 months ago, and it was from you. We were on a phone call, and you were like, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And this person is all in on effective altruism." And I was like, "I have no idea what that means. I have never heard of this before. I have never heard of this belief." And you should really describe it to our listeners, but it really, really helped me understand that there was a split in Silicon Valley over AI. I wasn't aware of that before. I just though that people were like, "Yep, we work for these companies. We're ready to go." And you took me through the effective altruists in Anthropic and different side in OpenAI, and it was, I'm sure, like the kindergarten version, but it was really, really helpful. So please take it away.

Zoë Schiffer: So at a very basic level, effective altruism is a belief system built around the idea that people should use their time, money, and resources as efficiently as possible to improve or even save the lives of as many people and animals as they possibly can. At its core, it doesn't fundamentally have anything to do with AI specifically. It really is how can we make as much money as possible and then deploy it in such a way to help as many people as possible or save as many people as possible? This concept or these ideas of effective altruism were popularized by blogs like LessWrong, which is fringe, but in Silicon Valley, it did have a real prominence in the early 2000s. There was researchers at Oxford talking about it. The reason that AI has become a part of this is a lot of the AI researchers came up in this philosophy and they see AI as a true existential risk. And if you're concerned with the welfare of humanity, and then you start to engage a lot with a technology that you think maybe doesn't have a huge risk, but nonetheless a substantial risk of killing everyone, then that becomes the central concern. I think one thing though that I wanted to just lay out, far be it from me to come out swinging for effective altruists, but like any movement, it's a spectrum. You have people who are real fanatics. And when you hear their viewpoints and the trade-offs that they would make to save a maximum number of people, that kind of utilitarian belief system, it sounds totally nutty. But I talk to a ton of people who identify as effective altruists who are completely normal. I was going to say rational, but that feels really loaded in this context. But they're thinking about it really deeply. They don't sound like religious fanatics. They don't seem like people who are members of a cult. And it's not like all these people are getting together and talking. It's a movement, it's widespread. There are different groups.

Leah Feiger: And when you apply it to AI, there is something that I find there's an appealing aspect where you're saying, look, we're just saying that we should be concerned about where this technology is going to go and what it could do to people. That's the baseline, right? Is that a pretty decent summary?

Zoë Schiffer: 100 percent. And if you thought that you were working on a technology that might, 10% chance, kill everyone, the rational thing to do would be to quit and warn everyone about it. So in that sense, what Jacob Coxon did isn't completely shocking. But it has been very interesting to see this go fully mainstream. We have seen AI researchers who are really concerned about AI safety go on Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan. And again, the Venn diagram of effective altruists and AI safety researchers, it's not a perfect circle, but there is a fair amount of overlap.

Leah Feiger: So OK, Sam Altman, OpenAI, Dario Amodei, Anthropic. Dario has talked about AI being a risk for the world. So would he be in the EA category?

Zoë Schiffer: OK, this is a very, very loaded question. So Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, worked with Dario Amodei for a while. They were both at OpenAI. Then Dario quit, along with a small group of OpenAI researchers and started a new company specifically to try and build AI safely to benefit all of humanity, etc., etc. And they didn't feel like they could do that at OpenAI. So there you get a clear split between, and this is not how they identify, but this is how people categorize them. Sam Altman kind of represents the growth at all costs, capitalist view of artificial intelligence. Dario represents more of the effective altruism, let's do it safely. We have to be the ones to win because only we understand the real risks involved. Dario has said, I believe, in more recent months and years that he doesn't identify as an effective altruist. That said, a lot of the beliefs do overlap. And I think that you do get a sense from talking to Anthropic researchers that a lot more of them appear to fall into the effective altruism philosophy.

Leah Feiger: Are there Slack channels for this? Are there parties? I'm so curious, now that this has escaped into a mainstream lexicon, I'm very interested beyond just the Pentagon being like, be pro-American, say no, how this is going to kind of continue.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I mean, yes, there are group chats. I'm sure there are Slack channels. There's a place in Berkeley called Lighthaven, that's kind of a conference center/group house co-op situation that hosts events. Last time I was there, the possibility of sleeping in one of their bunk beds came up. I was like politely decline forever. No, thank you. But anyway, it's interesting because, as this has gone more mainstream, like you said, the Trump administration has come out and they have really used effective altruism as kind of a overall term to say these people are almost religious fanatics, and they're anti-growth and they're anti-AI progress, and thus they're anti-American. Where of course there is a lot more nuance here. And I think a lot of these people are just trying to take AI safety really seriously. But now you're seeing effective altruism becoming kind of like a slanderous term to say we can't and shouldn't take these people seriously.

Leah Feiger: Why is this controversial? What you're saying doesn't sound that bad. We're just trying to save humanity?

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. Yes. I think one reason is that it's all about trade-offs. And when taken to the extreme, you can see how if your goal is to maximize good or minimize harm, there is a certain amount of harm you would be willing to take, or be a part of, I guess, in order to save a greater number of people. And I think people, somewhat rightly so, get a little freaked out that in an effort to eliminate the possibility that greater harm will be done, effective altruists would be willing to do somewhat harmful things in the present moment because they think they're protecting people from something that could happen later on. And I think the other part, and this is one that I definitely am thinking about, is if you think that you are the only company that's taking AI safety seriously, then you "winning," quote, unquote, the AI race is really important. And what wouldn't you do to win if you think the stakes are humanity level extinction?

Leah Feiger: I kind of think that everyone involved in this conversation sort of needs to enroll at Oberlin for a philosophy 101 class. That's maybe what I'm feeling right now.

Zoë Schiffer: I think Oberlin is what got us into this mess, perhaps. Oberlin philosophy specifically.

Leah Feiger: 102. Philosophy 102. It's the next chapter. Now that you've moved on from Slavoj Žižek, what comes next?

Zoë Schiffer: Oh my gosh. Moving on, it's been a few weeks since Meta released its new AI assistant Muse, and honestly, it's been kind of an unexpected hit for the company. It is still topping the app charts. But the reason that I wanted to talk to you about this is a really interesting situation played out in the Bay Area a few weeks ago. The designer, a freelance designer and lettering artist, Jessica Hische, who was hired by Meta to help design the Muse logo, told her newsletter subscribers like, "Hey, I did this project." In fact, I think the title of the newsletter was “New Work! (Don't be mad at me).” She kind of knew she was going to get some flack from people. But she basically said, "Look, Meta hired me to do this project. Ultimately, I think a big company should be commended for hiring an independent artist instead of just generating a new logo. Here's how the design process went. Hope you like it." That was kind of the message. One of her newsletter subscribers posted it on Threads. You forgot this was a thing. Threads is still very much a thing in the design world.

Leah Feiger: I did forget. I fully forgot.

Zoë Schiffer: And people flipped out. She had people saying they were disgusted with her, disappointed, that they'd followed her since she was in art school and they could never support anything she did again. People were posting photos of her house and speculating about her finances. She felt like the entirety of Threads was like a mob attacking her for three days for having come out and said she was doing this work. Yeah.

Leah Feiger: That's really intense.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, it was a lot. It was really interesting to talk to her because she actually has kind of complicated feelings about AI. She said her husband has worked in this field, and they actually had some disagreements because he was really excited about the technology. It honestly was very AI wife coded, if you read that article. And she was like, "Well, no, this could be really bad for commercial art." Artists who, to support their less highly paid artwork, work for companies occasionally like she does, this could be detrimental. And in fact, that is what Jessica Hische does. She has two shops in Oakland. They're really cute. One is kind of a stationary store. The other one is a space where she hosts kind of kid art workshops and classes and stuff. And she basically fully funds those by taking on corporate work. But she said in the past couple years, her corporate work had really dried up, and that she wasn't getting as many inquiries as she usually does. So when Meta came to her, she was like, "I didn't even feel that conflicted about it. I was like, Oh my gosh, I want to offer one of my employees a health plan. I need to not be so stressed every time Gusto pings me and says I have to run payroll. Yeah, I'll take this." She was paid. Guess how much you're paid if you redesign the Muse logo.

Leah Feiger: I mean, it's Meta. You should be paid half a million dollars in equity.

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, you would think. No, she was paid $12,500 more or less.

Leah Feiger: No. No, that's the worst part. That's actually the worst part of this whole story.

Zoë Schiffer: I know. Yeah. She was like, "I thought it was kind of amazing for two days of work." Because it was a sprint. She was just talking about designing the M at first, and then she got a bit more for doing the full typeface of Muse. But yeah, it wasn't even that much. And again, she's using the money to support her small businesses in Oakland. But she said there was a huge contingent of people on Threads who seemed like they were really AI purists, and fundamentally were like, "There is just simply no excuse for working on this technology." And they really saw her decision to work on it as a signal of support.

Leah Feiger: I'm mixed here. I don't know. Go after the company, not the artist is sort of how I feel. But I get that that's not as juicy or exciting as yelling at someone personally on a social media app.

Zoë Schiffer: A social media app that is owned by Meta, to be clear.

Leah Feiger: Really important point there. Yep. Does she regret it?

Zoë Schiffer: It's interesting. I asked her that question and she said ultimately no. She kind of weighed like, "Do I regret talking about it?" But she said ultimately she felt like she was doing a good thing for artists by commending a company that had hired an independent artist. She was like, "These big tech companies are not going to hire artists if they feel like that artist is then going to go slam them on social media. Ultimately, these companies exist and there can be some sort of symbiotic relationship with them," which I'm personally sympathetic to.

Leah Feiger: It's not an Uncanny Valley episode if I'm not at least mentioning or thinking about “Silicon Valley,” the TV show. And I can't not think about the artist in the show who is designing Gavin Belson's box and what that took. And I just remember watching it and being like, why are you putting yourself through this? But also everyone needs a salary. It was painful. Oh, wow. That's a complicated one. That's a little bit tough to hear.

Zoë Schiffer: Coming up after the break, we're sharing our WIRED/Tired picks for the week. Stay with us.

[break]

It's time for our WIRED/Tired segment. Whatever is new and cool is WIRED. Whatever passé thing we're totally over is Tired. Leah, what have you got for us this week?

Leah Feiger: OK. I want to start by saying everyone should subscribe to Wired.com and everyone should keep reading the news. That's it. No buts there.

Zoë Schiffer: Great.

Leah Feiger: But what I would add is it's tiring. This is a very long election cycle. We just finally finished primary season. We are now in midterm season. There is news from Iran and China and Russian plagues every single day. And sometimes it's really OK to stop scrolling and turn the news off. And I do want to remind people of that. Which brings me to my WIRED, which could help you do that. I am not being paid to say this, though I kind of wish I was, I guess. But there's a new season of Great British Bake Off on Netflix, and I'm really, really enjoying it. And it's just comfort and cozy, perfect for October, highly recommend. So read a couple WIRED articles, get nervous about the state of the world, watch an episode, and then go back and do some other fun things. Zoë, what is yours?

Zoë Schiffer: OK, I love that. Before we get into it, what is your average screen time, do you think? Related. It's related.

Leah Feiger: Oh. I would say we're in the five-, six-hour range.

Zoë Schiffer: OK. Last week I was at 14.

Leah Feiger: Whoa.

Zoë Schiffer: I was on my phone. I know. Isn't that terrifying? My mental health was horrific, and finally I was like, is this linked? I feel so silly.

Leah Feiger: Whoa.

Zoë Schiffer: Yes. Yeah, I know. I know. It's really, really sick.

Leah Feiger: That's a lot. I'm worried for you.

Zoë Schiffer: This week I'm down to seven hours. I've started checking it frequently, so more screen time as I check my screen time. OK. My TiredIRED is, I feel like every modern book I have read, this is a gross generalization, but first-person present tense is ubiquitous. This is not used to be how books were written, and now you open your average kind of literary fiction and that is how it's written, really tired of it. George Saunders, great writer, teacher, et cetera, has talked about writing in, I think he calls it third-person ventriloquist. You're in the person's head, but it's still third person. So the narration sounds like the person kind of thinking out loud. And I read a short story that he wrote that kind of felt like this style, I think it's called “Victory Lap,” for The New Yorker last night. He is just a true artiste. I really respect him. I really like everything he says and writes about the creative process and just being a human in the world.

Leah Feiger: I love that. I'm going to go read. Great recommendation. Are you going to go watch Great British Bake Off?

Zoë Schiffer: No, I will not, because I still don't own a TV. But I do feel like someday I'm going to get back there and that will be a show that will feel really good. That's our show for today. We'll link to all the stories we spoke about in the show notes. Adriana Tapia produced this episode. It was mixed by Pran Bandi, who's also our New York studio engineer. It was fact-checked by Matt Giles and Daniel Roman. Kate Osborn is our executive producer, and Katie Drummond is WIRED's global editorial director.