The world’s richest man is working to hire an army of canvassers in key states ahead of the November vote—but his mercurial tendencies have reportedly been hampering the effort.

Elections

MAGA Billionaire Musk Plots Multimillion Dollar Swing State Voter Blitz for Trump

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The world’s richest man is working to hire an army of canvassers in key states ahead of the November vote—but his mercurial tendencies have reportedly been hampering the effort.

Sean Craig

Sean Craig

Reporter

Tesla CEO Elon Musk joins Donald Trump during a campaign rally at site of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 5, 2024.

Jim Watson/AFP/Getty

MAGA billionaire Elon Musk is planning to hire an army of canvassers in swing states including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to help get out the vote for Donald Trump, according to a Washington Post report.

The Tesla CEO publicly pledged fealty to Trump following the assassination attempt on his life in July, weeks after quietly setting up a pro-Trump super PAC.

Musk has long hinted at his Republican leanings, tweeting on his X platform, “There is either a red wave this November or America is doomed,” in March and making clandestine donations to party causes long before he went full-blown MAGA.

America PAC, however, has allowed the world’s richest man and his moneyed Silicon Valley pals—including Palantir Technologies co-founder Joe Lonsdale, billionaire venture capitalist Douglas Leone, the Winklevoss twins, PayPal co-founder Ken Howery—to voice their full-throated support by funneling tens of millions into turning out Trump voters in battleground states.

The committee had spent $87 million on the presidential race as of last week, with two-thirds of that going to field operations, the Post reported, citing Federal Election Commission filings.

The effort has produced mixed results.

The Post reported that the notoriously impulsive Musk—who has fired thousands at his various companies in recent years—is intimately involved with America PAC’s operations, taking an aggressively hands-on approach that has led him to sack a bevy of vendors since July.

That meant the PAC had to reboot its plans in Arizona and Nevada in July, while a source told the Post it has struggled to recruit and retain campaign workers amid the disorder and turnover prompted by soaring regional heatwaves.

“How many people do you know that can just take time off to go knock doors?” they told the newspaper. “Who are those people? And then they get out there and it sounds good and then you go out and work in summer heat and realize it’s not for me.”

Musk apparently pushed back against PAC advisers who cautioned him he was moving too quickly, reportedly believing that “if we just run out there with clipboards and tell people what’s at stake, they will be convinced.”

In the campaign’s final weeks, Musk is fixated on deploying the PAC’s considerable capital to bankroll the MAGA world’s most aggressive get-out-the-vote operations.

The Post reported that a hiring surge for canvassers, who can make $20 to $40 an hour, is planned, with a particular focus on the swing states that will determine the outcome of the election, with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania among the focal points.

“If [Trump] loses, I’m f—ed,” Musk told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in an interview last week.