--- title: "Elon Musk’s Pro-Trump PAC May Have Seriously Screwed Up" description: "There's drama at Elon Musk's America PAC, which the billionaire is funding to get Donald Trump back in the White House." date: "2024-09-23" modified: "2024-09-23" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/elon-musk-trump-america-pac-canvassing" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "donald trump" - "elon musk" - "the digest" --- # Elon Musk’s Pro-Trump PAC May Have Seriously Screwed Up ![There's drama at Elon Musk's America PAC, which the billionaire is funding to get Donald Trump back in the White House.]() *\Image: Gotham/GC Images/Futurism\* ## Ding Dong Ditch Multi-hyphenate CEO Elon Musk has dug deep into his own pockets to get former president Donald Trump back into the White House. In July, the *Wall Street Journal* [reported]() that Musk had been pledging roughly $45 million per month to a new super-political action committee (PAC) called America PAC. And after a rocky start, including Musk [firing almost all of the organization's vendors]() in an [extremely characteristic move](), the PAC has seemingly forgotten to actually canvass voters in key swing states to vote for Trump. As the [*Associated Press* reports](), America PAC hasn't made much of a showing in battleground states. Reports of America PAC canvassers were rare in two dozen interviews with activists and party officials. "I haven’t seen anybody," the Republican Party field director in Oakland County, Michigan, told the *AP*, referring to the PAC. "Nobody’s given me a heads-up that they’re around in Oakland County areas." "I don’t know what the PACs are doing," GOP chair in Macomb County, Michigan Mark Forton added. "I don’t know if they are going door to door." ## Blank Canvas The number of door-to-door canvassers associated with the Musk-funded PAC is murky at best. According to Election Commission spending reports, the PAC has paid canvassing firms more than $14 million since mid-August. Trump aides told the *AP* that they have an estimated 30,000 volunteer captains who were tasked with identifying target voters. The America PAC is only one of several conservative action committees representing Trump in the field. The Trump campaign has outsourced essentially its entire ground operation to these committees, likely at least partially the result of recent changes affecting to US political campaigning laws. In March, the Federal Election Commission [issued a ruling]() allowing nonfederal commiteees to coordinate paid canvassing efforts in federal elections. But America PAC's operations appear to be pretty chaotic behind closed doors. Sources told the *AP* that the PAC had fired a Nevada-based canvassing company after paying it just shy of $2.7 million last month — a notable shakeup, considering we're less than 50 days away from the election. As a result, the PAC stopped canvassing in Arizona and Nevada over the past few days, as [*The Guardian* reports](). Apart from canvassing, the PAC has been flooding North Carolina voters with door-hangers and mail pieces, the [*Washington Post* reported]() last week, which paint vice president Kamala Harris as "radical" and "dangerous." America PAC has ramped up spending substantially since mid-August. Its almost $33 million in expenses have primarily gone to door-knocking and digital advertising, per *WaPo*. But whether this money is being used effectively, especially considering the *AP*'s most recent findings that canvassers are far and few between, remains unclear at best. **More on the America PAC:** *[Elon Musk's $160 Million Bid to Get People to Vote for Donald Trump Was a Complete Disaster]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()