Businessman Elon Musk has donated at least $445 million to the US congressional midterm elections, CNN reports.
According to the network, a significant portion of the donations was directed toward helping Republicans maintain their influence in the US Senate.
"The infusion of cash has made the world's richest man the largest donor of the midterm elections, which will determine which party controls Congress during the final two years of President Donald Trump's time in the White House," CNN notes.
The network specifies that, according to Federal Election Commission data, in the first two weeks of October alone Musk invested an additional $76.8 million.
Earlier, The New York Times reported that over three months Musk had donated a total of more than $276 million to political action committees (PACs) and other Republican Party organizations.
"These powerful investments have allowed the Republican Party apparatus to get its ideas out to people so that Republicans could get a real chance to challenge history," Andrew Romeo, a representative of Musk's PAC America, told the newspaper.
It was noted that between July and September Musk donated, in particular, $158 million to the Senate Leadership Fund PAC, which supports Republican Senate candidates.
The newspaper noted that even before that, Musk had periodically made large donations to Republican Party campaign funds.
In the United States, PACs are organizations that collect donations and pass them on to campaigns supporting various candidates in elections.
The US midterm elections will be held on November 3. At stake will be all the seats in the House of Representatives, as well as some of the seats in the Senate. Polls show that the Democratic Party has a good chance of regaining a majority in the House of Representatives and, with a favorable turn of events, in the Senate as well.
