Elon Musk’s America PAC reportedly spent an estimated $200 million to help elect Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential race, deploying unprecedented resources to boost Trump’s turnout efforts in swing states especially.
Super PACs, or political action committee, according to the Federal Election Committee website, “are committees that may receive unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, labor unions and other PACs for the purpose of financing independent expenditures and other independent political activity.”
Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and a owner of the social media platform X, now stands to have a significant hand in Trump’s second administration. Trump has appointed Musk and former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), as announced by Trump’s camp on Nov. 12. This department will have broad aims: dismantling bureaucracy, cutting regulations, and overhauling federal agencies. This move grants Musk and Ramaswamy an informal advisory role that will not require Senate approval, allowing Musk to continue leading his companies.
Interestingly DOGE is already being called out for its name being similar to Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that trades under the name DOGE and became a phenomenon in 2021 mainly due to Musk endorsing the coin — in 2023 he even temporarily changed the logo on X to the Doge dog logo, sparking a spike in Dogecoin value. Needless to say Musk has made a pretty penny from Dogecoin — and continues to do so. Dogecoin jumped nearly 20% after Trump announces the Department of Government Efficiency, the New York Post reported. The price of Dogecoin was $0.42207706 USD today as of Nov 13, 2024, 10:50 am EST, with a 24-hour trading volume of $31.86B USD, CoinDesk reported.
Musk’s Money Influence in the Election
According to insiders, Musk provided the majority of funding to America PAC, which focused on reaching out to low-propensity and first-time voters.
But its methods are now being investigated in Michigan and other swing states for potential election law violations. The investigation is focused on the PAC’s use of a voter registration feature, which allegedly led people to submit their personal information under potentially misleading circumstances, CNBC reported. This “register to vote” prompt redirects users from swing states to a confirmation page without completing the voter registration process, raising concerns about data use transparency and possible voter manipulation.
America PAC also started questionable daily $1 million giveaways as part of a campaign to gather support for a petition defending the First and Second Amendments. On Nov. 4 a lawyer for Musk‘s PAC informed a judge in Philadelphia that the “winners” of his $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes in swing states are not chosen by chance but are instead chosen to be paid “spokespeople” for the group, PBS reported.
