Musk publicly endorsed Trump on July 13, hours after the assassination attempt on the Republican candidate’s life.
5 min read Last Updated : Sep 07 2024 | 8:51 PM IST
By Dana Hull, Biz Carson and Bill Allison
Elon Musk’s America PAC is starting to fire up its digital ad campaign in support of Donald Trump’s presidential bid. The messages so far have been targeted at swing-state voters — and are anything but subtle.
“If you sit this election out, Kamala and the crazies will win,” says an ad on Google’s YouTube, which has been shown at least three million times. “You will be stuck with higher costs and more illegals invading our country.” It paints Trump, by contrast, as an “American Badass,” with a video of the former president after the July assassination attempt that drove Musk to publicly support his candidacy.
“We must STOP Kamala while we can,” reads an America PAC ad on Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, where Musk’s PAC has deployed the vast majority of its digital ad spend. “Arizona families have had ENOUGH of radical liberals.”
Another ad on Facebook includes a voice-over with a Russian accent: “Meet Comrade Kamala,” the 30-second video says. “Ready to bring Soviet Union to Michigan.”
And on X, the platform Musk bought in 2022 for $44 billion, one ad suggests, without evidence, the former president’s political opponents “tried to kick Trump off your ballot. They even tried to end his campaign and take him out for good.”
America PAC’s first several ad buys point to a campaign targeting decisive areas and demographics that both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris need to win the presidency. America PAC was among the top 10 US political advertisers on Facebook for the week ending Sept. 3, according to Meta’s ad library.
As the US presidential race enters its final sprint, many in Washington and across the country are especially focused on how Musk, the world’s richest person with a $236.8 billion fortune, will wield his money and power to influence the campaign. This week, Trump vowed to establish a task force to review federal expenditures, an idea recommended by Musk, the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX.
Musk publicly endorsed Trump on July 13, hours after the assassination attempt on the Republican candidate’s life in Pennsylvania. Besides pledging millions of dollars to the super PAC he created, Musk hosted Trump for a wide-ranging campaign event on X and has emerged as one of his loudest supporters this election cycle.
America PAC didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk did not respond to an email seeking comment about his PAC’s digital campaign. This week, the billionaire quoted himself saying that “a Trump victory is essential.”
America PAC has spent around $1.4 million for ads on Facebook and Instagram since it registered in May, according to Meta’s spending tracker. In the seven days ending Sept. 3, it spent more than $251,000, with the bulk of the ads in North Carolina, Arizona, and Georgia — three states where some polls show Harris has overtaken Trump.
Musk’s America PAC began its Facebook ad blitz in July, with a focus on contrasting the economic plans of President Joe Biden and Trump. One Facebook ad said Trump “will unleash the production of domestic energy resources, reduce the price of gasoline and natural gas, promote energy security, and ensure that our nation is never at the mercy of foreign countries for energy.”
After the assassination attempt on Trump, the ads continued switched their messaging to extolling Trump as a brave, defiant fighter with the now famous fist-in-the-air photo. Only in the last two weeks have the ads started attacking Harris directly, including video ads on Facebook featuring her laugh or painting her as a radical, with prompts to make sure Trump supporters have a voting plan.
America PAC’s Google ad campaign began in August, with most of the $281,400 the campaign had spent as of Friday afternoon going toward YouTube video ads, particularly targeting Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Wisconsin.
The “American Badass” ad on YouTube was targeting men in North Carolina between the ages of 18 and 34, according to Google’s ad demographics. The same ad was shown in Arizona more than 1.5 million times to the same target audience.
Musk’s own social media platform has also been a beneficiary, but to a smaller extent. The political action committee’s spending on X has totaled about $80,000 through Sept. 4, according to the most recent disclosure from X’s website. Since Biden dropped out of the race and Harris became the Democratic nominee, X’s ads have largely focused on turning out voters in Georgia and Nevada.
“You can put a stop to Kamala’s chaos,” says an America PAC ad on X. “Make your plan to vote today and help President Trump win Georgia.”
Another ad on X, geared toward voters in Nevada, says “Kamala laughs while Americans suffer.”
While Musk has almost 200 million followers on X, so far his PAC doesn’t have the same support. It has about 300 followers on Instagram and roughly 1,200 on X. America PAC only follows one account on X: YouTube star MrBeast.
First Published: Sep 07 2024 | 8:51 PM IST
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Publish date : 2024-09-07 04:21:00
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