Elon Musk Is Basically Working for the Trump Campaign Now

Barf Bag: What could be in it for him? Trump said he’d give Musk a powerful government job, which would basically make him an American oligarch.

By Susan Rinkunas  |  October 11, 2024 | 6:03pm
Photo: Getty Images Politics 2024 Election
Elon Musk Is Basically Working for the Trump Campaign Now

Welcome back to Barf Bag. 

Insecure billionaire Elon Musk was a supporter of Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP primary before Tiny D flamed out. After a bullet grazed Donald Trump’s ear in July, Musk declared that he was backing the former president, and ever since, he’s gotten increasingly…involved. So much so that the man ostensibly running three publicly-traded companies is now basically an adviser for the campaign. 

What could be in it for him? Well, Trump has said he’d give Musk a powerful job leading a government efficiency commission, which would make him an American oligarch.

The New York Times reports that Trump and the world’s richest man are speaking several times a week and Musk has effectively relocated from Texas to the critical swing state of Pennsylvania. It’s not clear if he’s staying in a rental, a hotel, or what, but he has an office in Pittsburgh.

Musk founded America PAC in June to help get Trump elected and the campaign is relying on it for “significant” support to knock on doors and contact voters in battleground states. The PAC has spent about $80 million so far, mostly on canvassing, and the Times reports that the total spend is expected to be between “$140 million to $180 million, almost all of it from Mr. Musk himself.”

So Musk is spending millions of his own money to try and help Trump win and he’s doing it in a very tech bro way: 

Ensconced in a war room in Pittsburgh with a team of lawyers, public-relations professionals, canvassing experts, and longtime friends, Mr. Musk is trying to apply strategies and entrepreneurial lessons from his businesses to a grind-it-out political mission with just weeks to go until Election Day.

Musk “even proposed taking a campaign bus tour across Pennsylvania and knocking on doors himself, in part to see how his money is being used.”

The America PAC recently tweeted photos of volunteers handing out $47 in cash to Philadelphia voters who signed a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments. The petition is for any voter in a swing state, and it’s a sleazy yet somehow legal way for the PAC to try and identify possible Trump supporters.

Musk is involved in other ways as well. The self-described “free speech absolutist” and Twitter CEO obliged when the Trump campaign asked the company to block a link to hacked opposition research of Vice presidential nominee JD Vance. Twitter also suspended the account of the independent journalist who published the documents. (Interestingly, Musk was outraged when Twitter suppressed links to the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020. Huh!)

And, of course, he’s relentlessly promoting Trump to his 200 million followers while spreading election conspiracy theories and lies about Democratic nominee Kamala Harris. It sure feels like Musk is trying to buy the election.

Don’t love that for us.

  • Man who led a failed coup asks for the use of military equipment before the election. [Washington Post]
  • Elon keeps talking about why no one has tried to kill Kamala. [Washington Post]
  • Trump has been spreading despicable lies about FEMA and Hurricane Milton, just like he did about Hurricane Helene. [ABC News]
  • Nikki Haley is probably very mad that a new poll found 36 percent of her primary voters said they’re voting for Harris. [The Bulwark] 
  • Several people at a Detroit, Michigan, Trump rally wearing “Auto Workers for Trump” shirts were not actually auto workers. [HuffPost]
  • The horrifying law firm Alliance Defending Freedom is asking the University of Memphis to reschedule a talk with Kyle Rittenhouse—who shot and killed two Black Lives Matter demonstrators in 2020—after protests disrupted the original event. [ABC 24]
  • Fox host Jesse Watters asked pathetic little Nazi Stephen Miller to offer dating advice for some reason, and he suggested that young men be “proud and loud Trump supporter[s] and your dating life will be fantastic.” [New Republic]
  • About a week after a Wisconsin megachurch pastor was arrested for using a parishioner’s phone to send himself nude photos of the parishioner’s wife, another accuser came forward and he was arrested again. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]

This has been your weekly Barf Bag, thanks for reading! 

 
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