When Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., launched her Senate campaign last year, she repeatedly villainized Elon Musk, the tech mogul whose cost-cutting government efficiency project was at the time an unpopular priority of President Donald Trump’s administration.
The “Trump-Musk chaos agenda,” Stevens told The Washington Post in April 2025, “is wreaking havoc on people’s lives.”
But Musk’s political agenda has also benefited Stevens’ political career.
The PAC tied to Musk’s SpaceX rocket company contributed a total of $50,000 to Stevens’ House campaign fund and her leadership PAC between 2019 and 2024, Federal Election Commission records show.
The SpaceX PAC has not donated to Stevens’ Senate campaign, but Stevens last year transferred a large chunk of her House campaign funds — more than $1 million — to her new Senate account. And while Democrats in other races have passed their SpaceX contributions on to charity, Stevens has no plans to follow their lead, a campaign spokesperson told NBC News.
“Haley fights for Michigan and only Michigan — and nothing will ever change that,” the spokesperson, Arik Wolk, said. “That’s why she’s taken on Elon Musk and fought and delivered for Michigan manufacturing on everything from traditional auto lines to motorcycle plants and aerospace suppliers.”
Wolk did not directly answer questions about why Stevens is keeping the money.
Musk, who became a major Republican donor and Trump supporter in 2024, remains a bogeyman for Democrats. More recently, he became the world’s first trillionaire, following SpaceX’s initial public stock offering.
Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, set for Aug. 4, is one of the year’s premier battles to determine what the future of the party looks and sounds like in a battleground state where incumbent Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is not seeking re-election. The race has become a nasty clash of policy and personality. There have been few reliable independent polls on the field in recent weeks.
The winner will face former Rep. Mike Rogers, who is unopposed for the Republican nomination, in the general election.
With her backstory of working in President Barack Obama’s administration and her backing from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Stevens represents the more moderate, establishment-aligned end of the spectrum. Former public health official Abdul El-Sayed boasts endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and other figures on the progressive far left. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow has aligned herself somewhere in the middle, as reflected by endorsements from Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.; Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; and others.
Stevens has faced scrutiny over her support from corporate PACs and pro-Israel groups, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its allies. The AIPAC-aligned United Democracy Project, for example, had through Monday spent $5.5 million to help Stevens in the primary, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. El-Sayed has been criticized for campaigning with Hasan Piker, a streamer known for his anti-Israel comments. And McMorrow has taken grief for her comments promoting beekeeping as an alternate career path in a state known for its car manufacturing muscle, as well as for disparaging Michigan in old social media posts that resurfaced this year.
As a member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, Stevens advocates for Michigan’s aerospace sector, a key component of a diversified state economy that is nevertheless still dominated by car manufacturing and parts suppliers.
“Sat down with @SpaceX suppliers in Troy today to learn more about the Michigan manufacturers working to reach new frontiers in outer space,” she posted on social media in February 2020.
Stevens also has a role shaping policy that affects Musk’s business. She has raised concerns about launch license delays and regulations that SpaceX has opposed.
“As I’ve been listening to today’s hearing, what is clear and evident is that we are in a bureaucratic soup by no individual’s fault other than the lack of willingness to lead,” Stevens said at a September 2024 Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee hearing where SpaceX’s work was mentioned several times.
In a March 2024 post, Stevens cheered “the successful launch of the world’s most powerful rocket — @SpaceX’s Starship! The commercial space industry is continuing to take us to the moon, stars, and beyond!”
The following month, the SpaceX PAC made a $5,000 donation to Stevens’ leadership PAC. It was the last contribution SpaceX made to support her.
Stevens also introduced legislation pushing back on Musk in the months ahead of her Senate campaign launch, when the tech mogul was a disruptive and omnipresent figure in the Trump administration.
Her Taxpayer Data Protection Act, targeted at Musk during his early work leading the Department of Government Efficiency, would prevent unauthorized people from accessing personal data through the Treasury Department’s payment system. More recently, Stevens offered legislation to reverse last year’s Social Security Administration staffing cuts. Neither bill has advanced in the Republican-controlled House.
SpaceX has not contributed to El-Sayed’s or McMorrow’s federal or state campaigns, according to FEC and Michigan secretary of state records. Like Stevens, both have railed against the work Musk did as a special government employee in Trump’s administration last year.
Previously, McMorrow had offered mild praise for Musk’s businesses, which have benefited from tax subsidies and public contracts, while calling for the government to spread money around to other priorities.
“Elon Musk and his companies have received billions of dollars in tax incentives, investment, for Tesla, SpaceX,” McMorrow said on the “Stand Up! With Pete Dominick” podcast in December 2021. “You know, I’m not arguing that those aren’t good things, but it’s a choice that we make as policymakers, and I think we need to incentivize and invest in childcare as well, because otherwise it’s never going to work.”
As of now, the SpaceX contributions to Stevens have not emerged as a major issue the way they did last year in New Jersey’s Democratic primary for governor. Then-Rep. Mikie Sherrill faced attack ads focused on the $24,000 in donations she had received from the corporate PAC. A primary rival, Rep. Josh Gottheimer, had received $2,500 from the PAC.
A Gottheimer campaign spokesperson told NBC News in May 2025 that he had redirected the money “to help Democrats in New Jersey beat Republicans at the ballot box” the previous year. Sherrill, who won the primary and the governorship, forwarded her campaign’s SpaceX money to the Community Food Bank of New Jersey in March 2025.
And, unlike Stevens, at least two other Democratic Senate candidates turned their campaign’s SpaceX funds into charitable contributions: Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois. Craig is competing in an August primary. Krishnamoorthi lost his primary in March.
