Ramtin Arablui and Randa Abdelfattah

You already know the person who spent the most money supporting President Trump's campaign in 2024.

His name is Elon Musk.

You might remember him showing up at Trump rallies.

Come on up here, Elad.

Jumping awkwardly around on stage.

But behind the scenes, he'd spend more than $291 million to support President Trump's win.

And we had one president who couldn't climb a flight of stairs.

And another who was fist-pumping after getting shot.

Shortly after the election, Musk was tapped by Trump to lead Doge, which would slash government spending and jobs, which he represented once by pretending to fire up a chainsaw at the conservative CPAC convention.

Musk was the biggest spender by far.

But he wasn't the only billionaire trying to influence the elections.

About $15 billion was spent in 2024.

And what raised eyebrows was the relatively short list of the ultra-rich people who spent it.

Several high profile billionaires are dumping massive amounts of money into the presidential race.

Fast forward to today.

The 2026 midterm elections are already shaping up to be the most costly in American history, part of a trend over the last several decades where the amount of money spent on elections has mostly been going up.

So we wanted to look at one moment, a big moment, that seemed to open the financial floodgates.

In the lead up to the 2008 presidential election, it looked like at the time that Hillary was the front runner for the Democratic nomination.

This is Michael King.

He's a law professor at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law.