Back in August, if Musk had found himself at Monterey Car Week instead of pumping money into his super pacs, he could have really cleaned house and built himself a really cool collection of some of the most important cars in history. As the CEO of the world’s most valuable car company, Musk must have at least some interest in cars, right? He did own a McLaren F1 at one point, for example, so maybe there is still a car guy hiding in there. Auction house RM Sotheby’s recently set a record for collector car auctions in Monterey, with more money changing hands that weekend than ever had in history. The wealthy car collectors are still flush with cash and willing to spend, it seems. The sale was led by the controversial $40 million Ferrari Luce charity auction, a rare $34.655 million McLaren F1 GTR sale, and an $18.7 million 1963 Corvette Grand Sport. In total the auction pushed 199 lots across the dais and nearly half of them were million-plus sales. What was that record breaking number? $380 million, meaning Musk could have used his political contribution slush fund to buy every single one of them and still have money left over for transportation, taxes, and registration.
If Musk really wants to be as popular as it seems he is desperate to be, he could have spent the summer driving around in his new Aston Martin Valkyrie Spider, Talbot-Lago T26 Record Cabriolet, Mercer Raceabout, or Lamborghini Miura P400. The point is, he could have bought whatever he wanted, but instead of something cool or useful, what he wanted was Ken Paxton.
What if he wanted to own the most expensive collector cars of all time? For just the money he spent in Texas he could easily have bought the one-of-two Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR “Uhlenhaut Coupe” which sold in 2022 for $142,000,000. In fact, for his 2026 political campaign contributions, Musk could have also purchased the Mercedes-Benz W 196 R Stromlinienwagen ($52,960,000), a Ferrari 330 LM/250 GTO ($51,705,000), another 250 GTO ($48,405,000), a Shelby Cobra Daytona Coupe ($42,905,000), the aforementioned Ferrari Luce, and yet two more Ferrari 250 GTOs ($38,500,000 and $38,115,000 respectively). That’s the top eight most expensive cars ever sold in history. Or, you know, one feckless midterm election media buy blitz. Which would you rather have?
