Elon Musk and other right-wing donors are "pouring money" into Wisconsin's Supreme Court race

Not satisfied with his unprecedented grip on the federal government, billionaire Elon Musk is looking to tip the scales in state races, too. 

Beginning Thursday, Musk-funded Building America’s Future PAC has dropped $1.6 million on TV ad buys in Wisconsin, where a Supreme Court seat that will determine the balance of power is up for grabs. The buys will support former Republican state Attorney General Brad Schimel in the fight against liberal-leaning circuit court Judge Susan Crawford.

Musk first weighed in on the race in January, when he said on X that it was “very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud,” referring to the majority-liberal court allowing absentee voting to proceed last cycle. 

The election will take place on April 1. It's unclear if Building America’s Future will make additional contributions before then, but the flood of cash already spent may push Schimel over the edge in a state President Donald Trump carried by less than 1 percent. 

Building America’s Future — one of many PACs Musk used to drop more than $250 million on Trump last year — spent over $33 million on races in 2024, per OpenSecrets.

The group spent millions on disinformation ops, funding a set of contradictory ads in predominantly Muslim communities professing Vice President Kamala Harris’s support for Israel paired with messages of support for Gaza in predominantly Jewish communities. Another initiative from the group, Progress 2028, falsely presented itself as a left-leaning answer to Project 2025.

The first ad from the group in Wisconsin race aired on Feb. 20, invoking a similar bellicose style to the group’s prior efforts. The 30-second spot attacks Crawford, the liberal-leaning candidate, for a 2018 sentence in which she gave four years in prison to a man convicted of making sexual contact with two children in a public swimming pool, deeming her “dangerous” for Wisconsin.

In a statement to Salon, Judge Crawford said Schimel has "proven he is for sale, literally confessing to groveling on his knees for support from deep-pocketed, far-right donors."

"Schimel took money from big drug companies and then refused to sue opioid manufacturers to hold them accountable for harming our communities, and gave a lenient plea deal to a man with a huge cache of child pornography after his lawyer gave thousands to his campaign," she said. "Elon Musk and other right-wing billionaires are pouring money into this race because they can bank on Brad Schimel to protect their corporate dominance, restrict reproductive freedoms, and take our state backward at the expense of ordinary Wisconsinites."

In an appearance at Marquette University Law School earlier this week, Schimel addressed Musk’s contributions and said he “can’t do anything to stop the money that comes into these races.” He added that he construed donations as a sign that donors “like the things that you stand for not because they're buying some end result.”

Musk isn’t the only deep-pocketed donor to intervene in the race, however. On Crawford’s side, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and philanthropist George Soros donated $500,000 and $1 million, respectively, via the state Democratic party. Schimel also received nearly $1.7 million from Midwest business magnates Diane Hendricks, Liz Uihlein and Joe Ricketts via the state Republican party.

Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, told Salon the last state Supreme Court race in 2023 “was the highest spending judicial election in the history of the United States.” April's race could top that.

Two years ago, a liberal justice ended a 15-year conservative reign on the bench, in part fueled by millions in ad buys from Super PAC A Better Wisconsin Together, a progressive advocacy organization, and other groups. Spending on both sides surpassed $50 million.

“There's no reason why we're not going to see the spending continue in huge amounts in future elections,” Heck told Salon. 

Heck said that in the decade since Wisconsin made sweeping changes to allow more outside cash to pour into its election campaigns — allowing unlimited party-to-campaign cash transfers, raising individual contribution limits, and upping PAC restrictions — the state has become “a wild west in terms of campaign spending.”

“There’s no limit on what political parties can give to the campaigns of the Supreme Court justices,” he said, adding that more than any other race, big money poses ethical issues for judges and their ability to be impartial. “There needs to be more assurance on the part of candidates and Supreme Court justices that they're going to be able to render decisions from the court unencumbered by the pressure of campaign millionaires.”

Heck didn’t rule out another cash drop from Musk, or even a direct donation to the state party. Representatives for Building America's Future did not yet respond to a request for comment.

“They've dropped $1.6 million, I don't know if there'll be more. I suspect there'll be more money dropped in,” he told Salon. “He's the richest man in the world. He's got the unlimited capacity to be able to spread his money around.”

And there’s a big incentive to get involved for the ultra-wealthy. With Crawford’s win, liberal leaners could cement a majority on the court until at least 2028, Heck told Salon.

Local Democrats are condemning the effort from the DOGE boss — currently hard at work dismantling the federal bureaucracy — to reshape the Badger State’s top court.

In a statement, Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler warned that Musk’s “attempt to buy Wisconsin’s Supreme Court is a red alert that his attack on democracy isn’t limited to gutting the federal government.” Wikler also argued that a right-wing court could restore gerrymandered legislative maps and influence future election rules and certification fights.

But others point out that Musk could have lucrative business before the high court soon enough. Musk’s Tesla sued Wisconsin earlier this year, per Wisconsin Public Radio, arguing it should be exempted from a state law banning auto manufacturers from owning car dealerships. A hearing in Outagamie County Circuit Court is set for next month, and attorneys for Tesla argue a ruling in their favor would dramatically expand sales in the state.