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Spanish opposition leader Feijóo calls for navy to be deployed to Ceuta
Spanish
opposition leader Feijóo calls for navy to be deployed to Ceuta
The
conservatives have said they will implement measures to curb immigration if
they win the upcoming snap elections.
Spain's
opposition Partido Popular (PP) party's leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo gestures as
he talks during a campaign rally in Madrid on October 10, 2026. | Oscar Del
Pozo/AFP via Getty Images
October
16, 2026 1:53 pm CET
https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-is-not-for-sale-feijoo-calls-for-navy-to-be-deployed-in-ceuta/
Spain’s
conservative People’s Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo on Friday demanded that
the navy be sent to Ceuta following unconfirmed reports of a Moroccan patrol
boat in the exclave’s waters Thursday.
“Morocco’s
repeated incursions into Spanish waters are not isolated incidents, but rather
a pattern of aggression that demands a firm response: Deploy the navy to the
area. Summon the Moroccan ambassador. Recall our ambassador in Rabat for
consultations. Demand explanations from the highest levels of the Moroccan
authorities,” Feijóo wrote on X Friday, adding that “Spain is not for sale.
Spain defends itself.”
The
opposition leader is currently bidding to replace Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez
after the embattled socialist announced snap elections for Nov. 29.
Feijóo’s
calls for a “firm response” are the latest in a wave
of criticism of Sánchez’s government after more than 70,000 migrants
arrived in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta on the Moroccan border in late July.
Migration ministers across the European Union have in recent months repeatedly
demanded tough
new EU migration policies.
His
comments also come after unconfirmed reports that a Moroccan patrol boat remained in
Spanish waters off the coast of Ceuta for hours Thursday, which the Spanish
Civil Guard has denied. Moroccan warships also allegedly entered Spanish
waters in July, though a European Commission spokesperson told Spanish press
agency EFE Wednesday that it was “up to the Spanish and Moroccan
authorities to clarify the facts.”
Feijóo
spent Thursday morning at a summit of the center-right European People’s Party
— of which the PP is a member — in Brussels, during which the EPP lashed out at
the Spanish government over the Ceuta crisis in its closing statement,
according to POLITICO’s
Madrid Playbook. Conservatives have said they will implement measures to
curb immigration if the government swings to the right after the snap election.
“Europe
as a whole must recognize the failure of the Spanish government and exert the
necessary pressure to prevent this crisis from becoming entrenched, spreading,
or happening again,” Feijóo said in an opinion piece earlier this month.
Tensions
over Ceuta and Melilla — which Morocco considers occupied territories — are
becoming increasingly strained: A POLITICO poll earlier this week revealed that
58% of respondents believe an
armed conflict between Madrid and Rabat is “likely” within the next decade.
In a landmark
visit to the exclaves also this week, King Felipe VI said that Ceuta and
Melilla were “an inalienable part of the political and national reality that is
Spain. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of our country are not
negotiable.”
The last
time a Spanish head of state visited the territories was in 2007, when former
King Juan Carlos I traveled to Ceuta and Melilla amid a diplomatic spat with Morocco.
Inside Elon Musk’s $276 Million Midterm Rescue Mission for Republicans
Inside
Elon Musk’s $276 Million Midterm Rescue Mission for Republicans
The
world’s richest person has quietly become by far the biggest known midterm
donor, trying to save Republicans’ Senate majority with some of the largest
donations in American political history.
Elon Musk
has shown less public interest in elections in recent months, but he has
patched up his relationship with President Trump and quietly spent enormous
amounts to help Republicans in the midterms.Credit...Demetrius Freeman for The
New York Times
Theodore
Schleifer has written about Silicon Valley politics for a decade.
Oct. 12,
2026
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/12/us/politics/elon-musk-midterms.html
Elon Musk
has quietly funneled more than $276 million into Republican groups and his
super PAC since the start of July, building a huge turnout operation to help
the party battle headwinds in the midterm elections.
The
staggering amount of money makes Mr. Musk, the richest person in the world, by
far the largest known donor in the midterms. Representatives for Mr. Musk
supplied the previously unreported figures on his political giving to The New
York Times before a federal filing deadline on Thursday.
In an
effort to save Republicans’ Senate majority, he gave a total of $158 million
this summer to the Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC backing the
party’s candidates for the chamber, according to his team. In sum, that is one
of the largest political donations in American history, and more than the
group’s Democratic rival raised
from all of its donors that quarter.
Mr. Musk
has also built a major Republican turnout operation through a super PAC he
founded in 2024, America PAC. He donated over $76 million this summer to the
group, which in turn spent that much on building a sprawling canvassing program
to try to turn out hard-to-reach Republican voters. The group is active in
seven Senate battlegrounds and nearly three dozen House races.
Elon
Musk’s campaign contributions
2025-2026
$366 mil.
2023-2024
$290 mil.
Since
July 2026
+$276
mil.
Prior to
July 2026
$90 mil.
2025-2026
$366 mil.
2023-2024
$290 mil.
Since
July 2026
+$276
mil.
Prior to
July 2026
$90 mil.
Sources:
Federal Election Commission filings (prior contributions), representatives for
Mr. Musk (most recent contributions).
Jillian
Vordick/The New York Times
Mr. Musk
has already given far more money, about $366 million, to
federal committees during the 2025-26 election cycle than he did during the
2024 election, when he laid out roughly $290 million to help return President
Trump and Republicans to power. He has given even more in undisclosed donations
during both elections, according to people briefed on the giving.
The
latest torrent of spending has helped give the Republican Party a financial
advantage in the midterms, as well-funded outside groups like Mr. Trump’s
powerful super PAC flood the airwaves with advertising in the final weeks. No
Democratic billionaire is spending nearly as much as Mr. Musk, and money
remains a central worry for the party in an otherwise favorable political
environment.
The
donations also clear up the mystery of how much staying power Mr. Musk wants to
have in American politics.
“In terms
of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future,” he
said in May 2025.
Mr. Musk,
who oversees a vast business empire that has benefited
from enormous federal contracts, is famously unpredictable and often jumps
from one project to another. He has been far quieter about his political work
since his
dramatic blowup with Mr. Trump last year. After months of wielding vast
influence inside the White House and overseeing Mr. Trump’s government
cost-cutting project, he raged
against the president’s major domestic policy bill and floated
threats to start a third party.
But the
two men have warmed back up, appearing together at three events in the last two
weeks and praising each other.
Image
Mr. Musk
and Mr. Trump have appeared together at recent events and offered praise for
each other. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Now Mr.
Musk has donated more than a quarter-billion dollars to help Mr. Trump and
Republicans in the midterms. The money signals his commitment to the right and
sets him up as a potential player in the 2028 presidential election, when his
super PAC says it intends to remain active — the first time it has confirmed
such plans.
Beyond
Mr. Musk’s donations to his super PAC and the Senate Leadership Fund, his
representatives said that from July through September, he had given smaller but
still substantial amounts to other conservative groups:
- $20 million to the Congressional
Leadership Fund, the main super PAC for House Republicans
- $10 million to Lone Star Liberty
PAC, a group supporting Ken Paxton, the Republican nominee for Senate in
Texas
- $10 million to the Republican
Governors Association
- $2 million to the Republican
Attorneys General Association
“If
Democrats take control of Washington and win key gubernatorial and attorney
general races this November, then America risks becoming a socialist, woke and
borderless country,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesman for America PAC. “These
robust investments have allowed the G.O.P. apparatus to get its message out so
Republicans can have a fighting chance to defy history.”
Pushing
for Paxton
On
voters’ doors across Texas, the campaign literature carries a stark warning:
“Radical Democrat socialists are winning elections all across America. Could
Texas be next?”
The
hanging door cards are the work of Mr. Musk’s voter-turnout operation, which
deployed nearly 3,000 paid canvassers last week around the country, according
to America PAC officials.
The group
has devoted most of its more than $76 million in midterm spending so far to
this canvassing program, shelling out smaller amounts on advertising, mail,
phone calls and text messages. Much of the messaging targets Democrats,
sometimes in misleading or overheated ways.
Image
Mr.
Musk’s political operation is distributing literature with attacks on a wide
range of Democratic candidates, according to direct mail shared by Mintt, a
mail-tracking firm. Some of the claims overstate Democrats’ actual positions or
describe Democrats as socialists when they do not identify as such.
This
spring, Mr. Trump’s political advisers asked Mr. Musk to reprise America PAC’s
2024 field program, a person familiar with the conversation said. Despite the
challenging environment for Republicans, some party strategists believe that a
field program can make the difference in particularly tight races.
America
PAC relies on a few voter-canvassing firms that compete aggressively with one
another for work and for staffing, according to people briefed on the
operation.
Turnover
in the canvassing industry is high. One canvasser who worked for America PAC
told The Times that he was paid between $1.50 and $3.00 for each door he
knocked on across Texas in the heat. America PAC says it has knocked on about
6.5 million doors across the country so far.
Mr. Musk
and his operation, people close to them say, have been particularly focused on
the Texas Senate race. The group has unloaded over a third of its disclosed
spending in that expensive race, more than in any other. It is uncommon to run
an extensive field campaign in large states like Texas, where television ads
are more often used to reach voters.
Mr. Musk,
a resident of Austin, has extensive
business interests and property holdings in Texas. Mr. Paxton, the state
attorney general, has investigated Mr. Musk’s opponents, like Media
Matters, a liberal group.
Mr.
Musk’s $10 million donation to Mr. Paxton’s super PAC came at a critical time,
when the Republican candidate was
being badly outspent.
And Mr.
Musk’s $158 million in donations to the Senate Leadership Fund, the most the
super PAC has ever received from a single donor in a quarter, may have made it
possible for that group to suddenly spend big for Mr. Paxton after months of
reluctance.
That is
because Mr. Musk’s donations preceded the decision in late August by the super
PAC, led by allies of Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority leader,
to start what has become a $149 million pro-Paxton ad campaign.
A Focus
on Transgender Issues
As it did
in 2024, Mr. Musk’s operation is focused not on persuading swing voters, but on
registering and turning out voters with conservative beliefs — especially
“low-propensity” ones who are less likely to cast a ballot.
This is a
lot harder for Republicans in a midterm election, without Mr. Trump at the top
of the ballot.
To do it,
Mr. Musk’s super PAC is leaning hard into the culture wars, especially
transgender issues. (Mr. Musk’s daughter, who is transgender, has spoken
about their clashes over her identity, and he has suggested
that this led to his increased political engagement.)
At
voters’ doors in Texas, canvassers are told to target Gina Hinojosa, the
Democratic candidate for governor, over her record on transgender issues,
according to parts of a script reviewed by The Times.
Image
Josh
Turek, a candidate for Senate in Iowa, is one of the Democrats being targeted
by Mr. Musk’s political operation.Credit...KC McGinnis for The New York Times
Image
Gina
Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for governor in Texas, is
another.Credit...Christopher Lee for The New York Times
Similarly,
the Musk operation is leaving literature on doors that claims that James Talarico, the Democratic nominee for
Senate in Texas, has a “radical trans agenda.” And America PAC’s top ad in the state, according to the media tracking firm
AdImpact, denounces Mr. Talarico over his past comments suggesting that “God is
nonbinary.”
The Musk
group is also targeting other Democratic Senate candidates over transgender
issues, including Josh Turek, the party’s nominee in Iowa. Nationally, one of
the super PAC’s most visible ads on Facebook features a man in makeup and
reads: “He made his plan to vote. Did you? Don’t stay home while crazies elect
radicals.” The group is running ads and sending mail on a broad range of
topics, but socialism is a core theme. The Musk super PAC regularly attacks
Democrats as socialist and ties them to figures like Mayor Zohran Mamdani and
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, according to 48 pieces of
direct mail shared by Mintt, a mail-tracking firm.
Online,
it is even running personalized messaging that invokes a voter’s
first name. For example, in a video showing smiling Democrats: “Why are
they smiling? Because Christopher hasn’t made a plan to vote yet.”
Much of
this outreach points voters to an America PAC website where conservatives can
learn about how to register to vote. The super PAC is pushing what it calls an
“America Pass,” a digital card on Apple or Google wallets on voters’ phones
that lists their registration information, along with election dates and
deadlines in their home state.
A Big
Spender With a Back-Seat Role
Image
Mr. Musk
was highly visible during an important judicial election in Wisconsin in early
2025, as well as during the 2024 election. This time around, he has stayed
behind the scenes.Credit...Jim Vondruska for The New York Times
While Mr.
Musk is spending big again and using some tactics that are similar to those he
deployed two years ago, this is not 2024 anymore.
He is in
a different place politically. While he and Mr. Trump appear to be on good
terms again — “our modern-day Thomas Edison,” the president called him on
Thursday — Mr. Musk is taking a hands-off approach this election and does not
appear as personally passionate.
He has
not brought up the midterm elections or the Trump presidency much in private
conversations with friends, according to people who have spoken to him in
recent months. He is focused on his businesses, these people say, and he and
his business lieutenants have taken a less active role in America PAC’s
operations, entrusting major decisions to Chris Young, his top adviser.
And on X,
a semi-reliable indicator of where the billionaire’s mind is, Mr. Musk has
written just seven direct posts this year about candidates in competitive
midterm races, according to a Times review, a far cry from his relentless calls
throughout 2024 to elect Mr. Trump. Five of those posts focused on Mr. Talarico
— and one appeared critical of Senator Susan Collins, a vulnerable
Republican in Maine.
Gone,
too, are Mr. Musk’s barnstorming campaign stops, like the ones he did in
Pennsylvania in October 2024 or a
Wisconsin judicial election in the spring of 2025. There are no more
sweepstakes where he personally hands
an oversize check of $1 million to some registered voters who sign a
petition, a gambit that drew
legal challenges.
Mr. Musk
has not evidently grown infatuated with candidates this time around, as he did
with Mr. Trump. The closest he came was a $10 million donation for a long-shot
Republican running for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky — an
investment that went poorly.
The $276
million figure is, of course, just what is publicly known. Mr. Musk has also
made some seven-figure donations to support midterm candidates through groups
that are not required to disclose their donors, according to a person with
knowledge of the matter.
Juliana
Castro Varón contributed analysis.
Corrected
on
Oct. 12,
2026
:
An
earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to Elon Musk’s practice of
handing out oversize checks during a Wisconsin judicial race in 2025. He gave
checks to some registered voters who signed a petition, not to people who
registered voters.
We
acknowledge mistakes in our reporting with corrections. If you spot an error,
please let us know at corrections@nytimes.com.Learn
more.
Theodore Schleifer is
a Times reporter covering billionaires and their impact on the world.
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