Who is paying for the $2.3 million against Talarico? Musk’s trust and Senate GOP leadership’s super PAC

By Staff Reporter

WASHINGTON — The newest $2.3 million television buy against James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, carries the name of a super PAC few voters have heard of: Lone Star Liberty PAC. Its federal filings show who is actually paying. In the three months before this buy, 84 cents of every dollar the group raised came from two sources: a trust in the name of Elon Musk and the main super PAC of Senate Republican leadership.

Lone Star Liberty reported the $2,292,500 ad buy to the Federal Election Commission on Oct. 18, along with a $110,000 buy through VOZ Media of Irving, Texas. Both oppose Talarico, and both list ads that began airing Oct. 17. The bigger order went to Armada Strategies, a Lighthouse Point, Fla., firm behind most of the PAC’s ad buys since September 2025.

The Inquisitor reviewed every report the PAC has filed since it registered in April 2025: seven regular reports (plus one amendment), 27 notices of independent expenditures and two letters to the FEC. The records show a group that started as a home-state vehicle for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s primary challenge to Sen. John Cornyn. Since the summer it has become a channel for national Republican money in the general election, while some of its money still comes from groups that do not disclose their own donors.

The third quarter: $17.9 million, mostly from two checks

Lone Star Liberty’s October quarterly report, filed Oct. 15 and covering July 1 through Sept. 30, lists $17,859,875 in receipts. That is more than the PAC raised in the previous 18 months combined. Just 36 itemized contributions account for all but $1,375 of the total.

The $10 million from the Elon Musk Revocable Trust is 56% of the quarter’s money. CBS News and the Guardian reported the gift last week, and the Guardian, citing Axios, reported that Senate Leadership Fund President Alex Latcham asked for it. Musk lives in Texas. CBS also reported that Musk gave the Senate Leadership Fund $158 million in September, which the fund passed almost immediately to a separate group, Texas PAC, that has run pro-Paxton and anti-Talarico ads.

The $5 million from SLF PAC, the name the Senate Leadership Fund now uses in FEC records, is the other pillar. The fund, which is aligned with Senate Republican leadership, backed Cornyn in the primary that Lone Star Liberty spent months trying to win for Paxton, NBC News reported. Three months after Paxton won the May 26 runoff, it was writing the PAC a check.

Two other entries are committees that are new to the race. MAHA Action PAC, a super PAC that registered with the FEC in September, gave $1 million on Sept. 16. Buckeye Victory Action Inc., an Ohio super PAC, gave $250,000 on Sept. 29. Buckeye’s own quarterly report shows where that money came from: it reported no receipts until late September, then took in $910,000, including $500,000 from the American Principles Project, a nonprofit advocacy group, and $400,000 from Buckeye Victory Fund Inc. of Beverly, Mass. Within a week it sent $250,000 to Lone Star Liberty and $250,000 to another super PAC, GLCF Inc.

Money whose donors are not disclosed

That layering matters because a super PAC must disclose its donors but a nonprofit giving to it generally does not have to disclose its own. The largest example in Lone Star Liberty’s records is Preserve Texas Inc., a McLean, Va., nonprofit. The PAC’s itemized receipts list five Preserve Texas checks since February, totaling $1.425 million, including $400,000 on July 13. (The PAC’s July entry lists a lower year-to-date aggregate of $1.2 million.)

CBS News reported in September that Preserve Texas was incorporated by John Plishka, the treasurer of Paxton’s Senate campaign, and that Talarico’s campaign filed an FEC complaint arguing the arrangement violated federal limits on what a candidate’s agents can raise. Preserve Texas told CBS it “is not established, financed, maintained, or controlled by any federal candidate or agent of a candidate” and that Plishka’s services are “purely administrative in nature.” A Lone Star Liberty spokesman told CBS the PAC “fully follows all regulations and laws.” The FEC has not acted on the complaint, and CBS noted the commission lacks enough members to vote on opening investigations.

Where the money went

Lone Star Liberty’s general-election campaign began Aug. 28. Since then it has filed notices of five ad buys against Talarico totaling $16,288,175 and two for Paxton totaling $3,586,620, a combined $19.87 million in seven weeks. Its earlier spending was aimed mostly at Republicans: FEC records show ads, mail and texts opposing Cornyn starting in September 2025 and opposing Rep. Wesley Hunt before the March 3 primary, then support for Paxton in the runoff.

The Q3 report also shows how the PAC is run. Its biggest single payment was $7,521,600 to Armada for ad time, and on Sept. 30 it still owed Armada $678,820. It paid $304,174.56 to Solutions in Texas, a Dallas firm, for a database and fundraising consulting; $70,000 to Straightline of Midlothian, Texas, for get-out-the-vote work; $40,000 to Remington Research Group of Kansas City for polling; and $51,904.55 to Atlas Strategy Group of St. Louis for consulting. It ended the quarter with $518,178.54 in cash.

Gregg Keller, who runs the PAC, told NBC News in May that its general-election fundraising was off to “an extremely fast start,” while conceding it might not match Talarico’s. “Are we going to be able to match New York City money? Are we going to be able to match San Francisco money? I don’t know; that’s a tall order,” he said. The PAC’s registration lists Robert Phillips III as treasurer, a mailing address in Dublin, Ohio, and a compliance email at AxCapital, a Kansas City firm the PAC pays for compliance work.

The donors who were there first

Before the national money arrived, Lone Star Liberty ran mostly on Texas checks. Over the full cycle, according to its itemized receipts, the largest individual donors after the Q3 checks are Midland’s Douglas Scharbauer, listed as a consultant to the Midland Chamber of Commerce ($1,225,700 in six checks); Houston’s Jonathan Knutz, CEO of Legacy Medical Consultants ($1.1 million); the Corpus Christi personal-injury firm Thomas J. Henry Law ($646,107); Gary Heavin, co-founder of Curves International ($500,000); and Chelsey Milton of Phoenix ($500,000). In all, the PAC reports raising $28.15 million since it was formed.

How it compares with the candidates

Talarico does not lack money. His campaign, Talarico for Texas, reported raising $60.2 million in the third quarter, spending $67.2 million and keeping $14.6 million in the bank on Sept. 30. Ken Paxton for Senate reported $10.2 million raised, $7.1 million spent and $4.9 million on hand. The gap is one reason outside groups like Lone Star Liberty carry so much of Paxton’s message. Lone Star Liberty is not the largest of them: CBS reported that Texas PAC has reported more than $100 million in pro-Paxton and anti-Talarico spending.

Under federal law a super PAC may raise and spend unlimited sums but may not coordinate its spending with a candidate. Lone Star Liberty’s ads must carry its name, and its donors appear in reports like the ones above, but often only weeks after the ads air. The next look comes Thursday, Oct. 22, when pre-general reports covering activity through Oct. 14 are due. Unlike candidates, super PACs do not file 48-hour reports of large late contributions, so money Lone Star Liberty receives after Oct. 14 will not be disclosed until the post-general report, due Dec. 3, a month after Election Day.

Who we asked

How we did this: Figures come from Lone Star Liberty PAC’s FEC filings, including the raw electronic Q3 report (FEC file No. 2027860) and the Oct. 18 24-hour notice (No. 2030040), which the FEC had not yet processed into its searchable database. Cycle totals combine the processed receipts through June 30 with the Q3 report. Buckeye Victory Action’s figures come from its Q3 report (No. 2021013). The candidates’ figures are from their October quarterly reports.

Photo: The Texas State Capitol in Austin. Bravodelnorte / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.