Elon Musk spends millions on anti-trans people campaign

Elon Musk is spending $100 million on campaign advertisements that claim the Democrats are spreading the transgender agenda.  

Outlets reported on ads in America PAC’s Advertiser pages on Meta and Google. 

Some of the names featured in the ads include Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown. 

The move comes amidst a large wave of anti-trans attacks since the start of Trump’s current term, and as Democratic party faces sharp divides over campaigning for trans rights. 

Elon Musk has a long history of anti-transgender bigotry, even publicly attacking his own transgender daughter, Vivian Wilson and referring to her as “dead” for receiving gender confirming surgery. In response, the then 18 year old Wilson severed ties with her transphobic father in 2022. Wilson has publicly criticized her father’s transphobia and revealed that Musk was emotionally abusive to her for her femininity as a child. Musk has stated that Wilson’s transition motivated him to advocate more for far-right politics.

Since acquiring the social media site Twitter (renamed X), Musk has openly platformed hate speech against the transgender community. Musk openly mocks gender pronouns of transgender people on his X profile.

In 2025, Musk falsely blamed the transgender community for vandalism of Tesla dealerships around the country. In 2026, Musk openly called for the death sentence for doctors who performed gender confirming surgeries for transgender youth.

Democrats have had diverse attitudes towards the trans community, even the candidates targeted by the America PAC’s, with some supporting trans rights and some pivoting to a more anti-trans position seemingly in hopes of appeasing conservative voters.

Despite moves by some such as Texas Senate Candidate James Talarico and the Ohio Democratic party to appeal more to centrist and right wing voters on trans rights, with Talarico publicly reversing his stance on trans athletes and gender affirming surgeries for minors on the right-wing news program Fox News, much to the criticism of LGBTQ Texans.

Republicans have consistently attacked Democratic candidates as campaigning on forcing massive transitions, with Texas far-right governor Greg Abbott accusing his opponent, Gina Hinojosa, of forcibly transitioning children in one of his many attack ads on her.

The anti-trans campaign is ramping up as Republican platforms in states such as Texas are pledging even harsher crackdowns on the LGBTQ community, including prohibiting gender transition for adults up to 26 years old and attacks on marriage equality for same gender couples.

Research indicates that only around one percent of people identify as trans, with an even smaller number accessing transition procedures because of access barriers to healthcare. Although those official numbers are small, other factors have to be taken into account when looking at how Americans identify as transgender, such as unaccepting families, communities, and anti-trans laws, which make transitioning a phenomenon many transgender Americans are reluctant to pursue. Thus leading to the possibility of a much higher number of Americans feeling a desire to transition privately.

Sherrod Brown rebuked America PAC in a Facebook statement, saying Musk’s payments would fail and that Brown would “put workers over billionaires.” The pro LGBTQ non-profit The Human Rights Campaign also criticized Musk, claiming he is “scapegoating LGBTQ+ Americans to distract voters from the cuts he made and the chaos he has caused.”

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