Elon Musk Plots His Final Moves for Trump
"With less than two weeks until Election Day, the richest person in the world is throwing himself into the effort to elect the former president.
Theodore Schleifer has been writing about Elon Musk and his super PAC since the summer.
He dined with Rupert Murdoch and a handful of other billionaires, for Donald Trump.
He intends to appear at Madison Square Garden this weekend, for Donald Trump.
He is planning future speeches and possibly a campaign push in Wisconsin, for Donald Trump.
He is donating “substantial” amounts of money to a super PAC focused on Hispanic turnout, for Donald Trump.
With less than two weeks left before Election Day, Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, has grown only more frenzied in his efforts to help elect the former president. Mr. Musk has emerged as a central character of the campaign’s closing days, so much so that Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate, referred to him this week as Mr. Trump’s true “running mate.”
Mr. Musk, the leader of Space X, Tesla and X, has already poured $75 million into a pro-Trump super PAC called America PAC. But his efforts in recent weeks have become more labor intensive — and more expensive.
Tony Gonzales, the Republican congressman from Texas whose allied super PAC he said he expected would receive the “substantial” gift, has grown close with Mr. Musk since bringing him to tour the southern border last year. He described Mr. Musk as especially hands-on.
“He’s going all in — and you see that with the amount of resources that he and his team and the group has provided,” said Mr. Gonzales, who said he didn’t know the size of Mr. Musk’s check to the super PAC. “But I would argue it’s, more importantly, time. There’s nothing more valuable than a person’s time. And Elon is literally campaigning every day in Pennsylvania.”
Mr. Musk, fresh off several town hall appearances in Pennsylvania in advance of Monday’s voter registration deadline in the state, is now plotting his next moves, according to a dozen Republicans with insight into his operations.
On Monday evening, Mr. Musk abandoned his political team’s makeshift war room in a Pittsburgh hotel to travel to New York City for a dinner with Mr. Murdoch, the conservative media mogul, and other business leaders to discuss the state of the race, according to two people with knowledge of the meal.
On Wednesday, he was back to performing the quotidian tasks of being a public company C.E.O. — speaking to Tesla shareholders and answering questions from Wall Street analysts on a quarterly earnings call.
“Peter was lamenting that the future doesn’t have flying cars,” he said at one point, referring to his fellow entrepreneur Peter Thiel. “Well, we’ll see.”
In some ways, what Mr. Musk has done for Tesla, the electric car company, is not terribly different from what he is doing now for Mr. Trump. Mr. Musk, not known for his humility, is throwing himself into a work project with the same exacting demands, penchant for cost-cutting and belief in himself that have defined his three decades as a Silicon Valley founder.
Rarely has a political megadonor made himself such a star of his own operation.
Mr. Musk, who considers himself the best marketer of his own companies, has leveraged his celebrity, enjoying a rush of media coverage for his PAC’s efforts, thanks to a publicity gambit.
Earlier this month, Mr. Musk’s leadership team held an open call within the super PAC to brainstorm creative ideas for using Mr. Musk’s money, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The idea that emerged was a proposal to pay $47 apiece to people who found others to sign a petition — helping Mr. Musk identify likely Trump voters in the process.
Mr. Musk’s petition eventually expanded to a random $1 million daily prize, and it generated well over one million signatures.
It also generated legal attention. The Department of Justice sent a warning letter this week to America PAC, suggesting that prosecutors could be investigating this as a possible criminal activity. An interest group, Public Citizen, filed a complaint on Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission.
Even skeptics of America PAC, including those within the organization, say that the sheer amount of money it is spending is bound to produce some results despite some major hiccups. The group has spent $134 million on the presidential campaign and 18 congressional races, 60 percent of which has been dedicated to voter canvassing operations. The super PAC is expected to disclose tens of millions of dollars in additional contributions from Mr. Musk in a federal filing on Thursday evening.
Mr. Musk has assembled a team that resembles the landing group that he used on a recent mission that he also considered critical: buying Twitter. Mr. Musk’s cousin James Musk has helped the super PAC, reprising a role he played in the weeks following the Twitter purchase, as is a longtime executive from Mr. Musk’s entourage.
Mr. Musk has also recruited veterans of the world of field organizing. The latest hire was Chris Carr, a well-respected Republican field operative who is an expert on the state of Nevada, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.
Mr. Musk has built a get-out-the-vote team that Mr. Trump is largely depending upon in these final weeks, and the Trump campaign is largely thankful for Mr. Musk’s help, according to people close to Mr. Trump. Still, some of those same people cautioned that while Mr. Musk would surely be celebrated if Mr. Trump wins, the billionaire would, fairly or not, be denigrated if he loses.
America PAC, through its contractors and subcontractors, employs over 2,500 canvassers knocking on well over 100,000 doors a day, according to a person with knowledge of the group’s activities. Some canvassers have been recently poached by other firms offering higher pay. The group has in recent days focused on targeting those voters who are least likely to participate in the election, especially in the suburbs, according to two people briefed on the activities. And the PAC has recently been circulating information on early-vote totals to interested parties, although that data has not gone to some of the PAC’s own donors, who have long-simmering complaints that they feel that they are being kept in the dark.
Mr. Musk also appears to be playing a long game. He and his family-office chief, Jared Birchall, filed paperwork in Texas this month to incorporate two new entities with names that appear to carry political objectives: Group America L.L.C. and United States of America Inc. The entities were first reported by Forbes.
Their purpose is unclear, but the timing is revealing for a billionaire who may seek voter data for future political projects. One person close to the super PAC said the group had recently begun testing some techniques for targeting voters that could yield data for the future.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, has made Mr. Musk part of his closing argument, promoting a fund-raising appeal to small-dollar donors that promises that Mr. Musk would match their contributions.
Mr. Musk is particularly popular among young men. But on Wednesday, a Democratic messaging firm, Blueprint, released a study it had conducted to determine which of 14 recent quotes by Mr. Trump on podcasts resonated with male, and particularly young male, voters.
Mr. Trump’s praise of Mr. Musk ranked the worst.
Theodore Schleifer is a Times reporter covering campaign finance and the influence of billionaires in American politics. More about Theodore Schleifer"
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