The extraordinary duplicity of Musk's $180 million donation to support Trump
Elon Musk has transformed Twitter — once the top source of new subscribers to this newsletter — into X, a platform that amplifies lies, bigotry, and conspiracy theories. Musk altered the network's algorithm to promote his right-wing views and suppress links from Popular Information and other independent outlets. That's why I need your help. Popular Information has 320,000 readers, but only a small percentage are paid subscribers. If a few more readers upgrade to paid, Popular Information can invest in alternative growth strategies, reach more people, and produce more groundbreaking accountability journalism. Billionaire Elon Musk will reportedly spend $180 million to encourage former President Donald Trump supporters in swing states to vote absentee, a practice Musk has publicly described as "insane," "too risky," and a recipe for "large-scale fraud." Trump has advanced a variety of wild conspiracy theories to falsely claim that he won the 2020 presidential election. One of Trump's favorites is the false claim that supporters of President Joe Biden stuffed dropboxes with falsified absentee ballots. Right-wing polemicist Dinesh D'Souza created a 90-minute documentary, 2000 Mules, devoted to the baseless allegation about absentee ballots. D'Souza's documentary was so shoddy that its distributor, Salem Media Group, ultimately pulled the film from the market and issued an apology. Numerous studies have found that voting by mail is “safe and secure.” A database maintained by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which supports restrictions on mail-in voting, reported “1,200 cases of vote fraud of all forms” from 2000 to 2020. Of those cases, “204 involved the fraudulent use of absentee ballots." This amounts to “one case [of fraud using mail-in ballots] per state every six or seven years,” or “about 0.00006 percent of total votes cast.” Nevertheless, for months, Musk has used X to spread misinformation about absentee ballots to his nearly 190 million followers. Here is a sampling:
Musk's X account has become the social media equivalent of 2000 Mules, grasping to justify Trump's lies about the last presidential election. Musk's diatribes against absentee voting have occurred as Trump and Musk are reportedly "developing a friendly rapport and talk on the phone several times a month as the election nears." As a result, it's not entirely surprising that, on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Musk would be donating $45 million a month to a Super PAC supporting Trump's campaign. (Musk previously pledged not to donate to Trump or Biden.) The contributions to America PAC, which was formed in May, would make Musk the biggest financial backer of Trump in 2024 and one of the largest political donors of all time. How will America PAC spend Musk's money? According to the Wall Street Journal, America PAC will focus on "persuading constituents to vote early and request mail-in ballots in swing states." Already, America PAC has hired hundreds of workers who are "having conversations with constituents in swing states and urging voters to request mail-in ballots." The America PAC website encourages Trump supporters to "vote early in person or by mail." It includes a link for voters to request an absentee ballot. So, on the one hand, Musk is telling millions of people that absentee ballots are "insane" and a vehicle for "large-scale fraud." On the other hand, he is spending $180 million to encourage more Trump supporters to vote absentee. America PAC likely to exploit new FEC loopholeMusk's large donations to America PAC position it to aggressively exploit a new loophole in federal campaign finance law. A Super PAC can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support (or oppose) a federal candidate. But, as a general rule, it cannot coordinate directly with a candidate's campaign. Earlier this year, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) created a significant exception. In a March 20 advisory opinion, the FEC decided that "canvassing literature and scripts are not public communications, and as a result are not coordinated communications under Commission regulations." That means that America PAC, which is focusing on canvassing to increase absentee voting in swing states, can coordinate its messaging directly with the Trump campaign. The FEC made this determination based on the idea that canvassing is "a traditional grassroots activity fundamentally different" from mass mailings or television advertisements. Now this loophole will allow the Trump campaign to effectively control messaging backed by hundreds of millions of donations from Musk and a few other very wealthy people. The FEC is composed of three Republican and three Democratic commissioners. For years, that has deadlocked the FEC, preventing it from issuing any significant rules or opinions. That has changed in recent months as Commissioner Dara Lindenbaum, a Democrat appointed by President Biden in 2022, has repeatedly sided with the three Republican commissioners to weaken campaign finance regulations. |
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