Elon Musk, a far-right influencer who also happens to be one of the wealthiest people in the world, formed a political action committee in May called America PAC, a group dedicated to re-electing former president Donald Trump. And the PAC’s quarterly filing with the Federal Election Commission was posted publicly late Tuesday, revealing Musk has donated almost $75 million since July 3. That sum makes Musk one of the biggest contributors to Trump-aligned propaganda groups in this election cycle.
Musk responded overnight on X to news of his donations being made public that his America PAC, “is just aiming for common sense, centrist values.” It should be noted, of course, that this is horseshit. It’s complete and utter horseshit, since Trump is a racist, convicted felon and sexual predator who dismantled abortion rights in this country and promises to be a dictator on day one. You know, centrist stuff.
The Wall Street Journal reported back on July 16 that Musk was likely to donate around $45 million per month to his PAC, a claim the Tesla CEO initially denied. Musk tweeted a graphic that read “fake gnus” about the initial report, leading many of his defenders to think he wasn’t donating anything. But that wasn’t the case, obviously.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2024
Musk later admitted he was contributing money to America PAC, just not $45 million per month. The billionaire didn’t elaborate, creating a guessing game for the general public as it became increasingly clear that Musk had inserted himself into the election cycle. Aside from promoting pro-Trump content on the social media site he purchased, formerly known as Twitter, Musk also appeared at an Oct. 5 rally for Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he jumped around like an awkward toddler, exposing his stomach and generally making a fool of himself.
But the day when we would finally learn how much money Musk had donated was inevitably going to come around. In reality, the tech mogul donated $14.95 million in July, $30 million in August, and $30 million in September, according to the FEC filing, totaling $74.95 million.
The FEC filing covers donations from July 1 to Sept. 30, so it’s unclear if Musk has made any donations in the past two weeks. And while Musk’s initial donations weren’t reaching the level of $45 million per month, as the Wall Street Journal claimed, it was still a good chunk of money. Musk also knows quite well that this was the last FEC filing before the election on Nov. 5, so there’s plenty of time for Musk to inject more cash before any of it can be made public.
Musk’s donations:
- $5 million on July 3
- $5 million on July 10
- $4.95 million on July 18
- $7.5 million on Aug. 5
- $7.5 million on Aug. 6
- $15 million on Aug. 20
- $30 million on Sept. 5
What does all of this money get spent on? The group buys digital ads on platforms like Google, YouTube, and Facebook in an effort to convince people that Trump, a convicted felon and racist dullard, is actually the person who should run this country again. There are also a handful of ads for Republicans in very competitive House races.
Some of the ads even feature Musk himself, imploring people to “fight, fight, fight” and “vote, vote, vote” for Trump, like in the ad below, one that’s currently running on YouTube.
The Facebook ads are particularly embarrassing, given the fact that they promise anyone who requests a mail-in ballot for the upcoming election will get their name sent to Trump at his home in Mar-a-Lago. Some of the ads even refer to something called the 47 Club, a reference to Trump hoping to be the 47th president.
“The 47 Club isn’t for everyone. It’s an elite group Trump trusts,” the narrator says. “To become a member, you must do one thing. Request a mail-in ballot. Once you do, your name is going straight to Mar-a-Lago. Vote by mail and save America.”
The style seems to mimic the “secret” membership clubs promoted by toy and cereal manufacturers in the 1950s and 60s when the target audience of Boomers were children. The implication is that Trump himself will see their name, though anyone who’s impressed by that transparently fake promise probably isn’t smart enough to sign their own name on a ballot, let alone operate a computer.
America PAC also made headlines recently when it promised to give $47 cash to anyone who signs a “petition” in a swing state that pledges to support the First and Second Amendments. The ploy is clearly a way to collect personal information on voters in battleground states, though it’s not clear how many people have actually participated nor whether they’ll actually get paid. It’s also unclear what the information will be used for this close to the election.
The group also pays people to go door-to-door and ask them to vote for Trump. But new reports from the Washington Post and the Guardian about on-the-ground activities of the group make the entire endeavor sound like a disorganized shitshow. And that probably won’t come as a surprise to many people, given Musk’s reputation as a man who mismanages so many aspects of his businesses.
America PAC reportedly pays workers between $20-40 per hour to knock on doors and convince likely Trump voters in crucial swing states to get out and vote early. But those workers appears to sometimes have bad info, according to the Post, often coming upon homes occupied by people who say they’ll vote for Kamala Harris or undecided voters who are hard to persuade.
The workers use an app called Campaign Sidekick which can be glitchy, as the Washington Post reports, and requires fast mobile connections to work as intended. That’s obviously a problem in more rural areas of battleground states like Wisconsin, where the Post spoke with a worker who was out knocking on doors.
When a given worker doesn’t have a fast mobile connection, they’re supposed to use the app in “offline” mode, which presents even more challenges, according to the Guardian, since it doesn’t upload completed routes properly as the news outlet tells it. Tracking those routes is essential to ensure workers are hitting the right houses but also to guarantee efforts aren’t being duplicated. Campaign Sidekick didn’t immediately respond to a message Tuesday but pushed back to the Guardian against claims the app is glitchy, “saying it has always been upfront about the limitations of offline walkbook.”
To complicate things further, the workers may not even be properly engaging people when they go out on their routes, according to the Guardian, with some staff just “speed-running” an assigned route and throwing campaign materials at the door without knocking. Workers are paid by the number of doors they knock, which creates even more bad incentives for people who may not be true believers in MAGA’s fascist cause. It all sounds like a mess, obviously. But that’s to be expected on some level with paid staff hired in a rush.
And it sounds like everything really has been in a rush. The Post reports that some of Musk’s early political advisors warned him that he was trying to move things too quickly, given the time available before the election, “cautioning that it would require months more to properly hire and train the necessary staff.” But doing things too quickly and trying to deal with the fallout is kind of Musk’s entire playbook, as anyone who saw the smoke and mirrors at Tesla’s big Cybercab event last week can attest.
The newspaper also notes that Musk fired at least three vendors over the summer just as they were about to get started, making an already condensed timeline even more chaotic. And Musk has been micromanaging things in a frustrating way, according to multiple reports that date back to September.
Musk endorsed Trump shortly after the former president was shot at during one of his neo-fascist rallies in Butler, Pennsylvania. And Musk has said that he believes Democrats will put him in prison if Trump doesn’t win, though it’s not entirely clear why he might think that. Musk also reportedly banned a reporter from X for releasing a dossier on JD Vance after the Trump campaign coordinated with the billionaire. That reporter has since been reinstated to Musk’s social media platform after the coordination became public.
The race between Trump and Harris is still neck-and-neck if you can believe it, with FiveThirtyEight’s polling average showing Harris up just 2.4% in the national polling. Things are even tighter in the must-win states of Wisconsin, where Harris is up just 0.5%, Pennsylvania, where she’s up just 0.7% and Michigan, where she’s also up just 0.7%. It’s going to be a close one if the polls are to be believed.
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