The Daily Beast reports:

Elon Musk secretly funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into an effort to turf a Democratic prosecutor in Texas, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

The Texas resident and Tesla and SpaceX CEO was the chief financier of Saving Austin, a group that distributed incendiary material attacking District Attorney José Garza during the Democratic primary, including fliers that baselessly accused him of “filling Austin’s streets with pedophiles & killers,” the Journal reports. Alongside that tagline, the fliers contained an image of the Travis County DA next to a bloody teddy bear and the warning, “The next victim could be your loved one.”

Musk’s participation may have been more personal than political due to one key factor: his reported hatred of investor and philanthropist George Soros, a supporter of the DA.

The progressive Soros, 94, has donated millions to political action committees in support of district attorney candidates who advocated for reforms to the justice system and greater accountability for law enforcement. That includes Garza’s 2020 campaign, when the Soros-backed Texas Justice and Public Safety PAC spent $450,000. Soros did not contribute to this year’s race.

Garza and his opponent in the Democratic primary, Jeremy Sylestine, told the Journal they didn’t know about Musk’s involvement, and both previously condemned the Saving Austin flier. Garza won the March primary with two-thirds of the vote and is expected to win re-election in November. [Continue reading…]