#americapac — Public Fediverse posts

Elon Musk's #AmericaPAC Has Created an #ElectionDenial #Cesspool on X

The group has nearly 50,000 members, many enthusiastically sharing debunked claims about #voting fraud. “It's just an #election denier jamboree,” says one expert.
#twitter #ElonMusk #Musk #election2024 #disinformation #conspiracytheories

https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-america-pac-election-denial-community-x/

No wonder the polling is so misleading. This is how they do it, with plenty of canvasser exploitation.
#AmericaPAC #canvassing #doorknocking #deception #Michigan
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-america-pac-blitz-canvassing-michigan-uhaul/

New #Elon #Musk #PAC #Ad Calls #KamalaHarris ‘Big Ole C Word’: Communist, and claims ‘The Worst Part? She’s Proud Of It’.

Musk founded #AmericaPAC, a #superPAC in support of #Trump.

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/new-elon-musk-pac-ad-calls-kamala-harris-big-ole-c-word-the-worst-part-shes-proud-of-it/

The #JusticeDepartment #warned #ElonMusk’s #AmericaPAC in recent days that his $1 million #sweepstakes to #registeredvoters in #swingstates may #violate #federallaw, people briefed on the matter told #CNN.

#Federallaw #bars #paying #people to #registertovote.

— #EminentDomain his #companies, #Revoke his #citizenship, and then #ban him from the country forever.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/elon-musk-justice-department-letter

The #JusticeDepartment #warned #ElonMusk’s #AmericaPAC in recent days that his $1 million #sweepstakes to #registeredvoters in #swingstates may #violate #federallaw, people briefed on the matter told #CNN.

#Federallaw #bars #paying #people to #registertovote.

— #EminentDomain his #companies, #Revoke his #citizenship, and then #ban him from the country forever.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/elon-musk-justice-department-letter

The #JusticeDepartment #warned #ElonMusk’s #AmericaPAC in recent days that his $1 million #sweepstakes to #registeredvoters in #swingstates may #violate #federallaw, people briefed on the matter told #CNN.

#Federallaw #bars #paying #people to #registertovote.

— #EminentDomain his #companies, #Revoke his #citizenship, and then #ban him from the country forever.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/elon-musk-justice-department-letter

The #JusticeDepartment #warned #ElonMusk’s #AmericaPAC in recent days that his $1 million #sweepstakes to #registeredvoters in #swingstates may #violate #federallaw, people briefed on the matter told #CNN.

#Federallaw #bars #paying #people to #registertovote.

— #EminentDomain his #companies, #Revoke his #citizenship, and then #ban him from the country forever.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/elon-musk-justice-department-letter

The #JusticeDepartment #warned #ElonMusk’s #AmericaPAC in recent days that his $1 million #sweepstakes to #registeredvoters in #swingstates may #violate #federallaw, people briefed on the matter told #CNN.

#Federallaw #bars #paying #people to #registertovote.

— #EminentDomain his #companies, #Revoke his #citizenship, and then #ban him from the country forever.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/politics/elon-musk-justice-department-letter

In August the NYT reported Elon Musk hired Chris Young a senior political official at PhRMA, the trade association of the pharmaceutical industry and nat'l field director for the RNC in 2016.

The story noted Young would be Musk's eyes and ears at America PAC.

A 10/22 filing shows Young is now treasurer of America PAC
https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00879510/1835649/

#ElonMusk #Musk #AmericaPAC #ChrisYoung

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/28/us/politics/elon-musk-political-adviser.html

Elon Musk 💩💩💰mucking around with his money in NJ-7 to aid Tom Kean Jr.

#Billionaire Elon #Musk’s America PAC has begun spending in House districts around the country to aid #Republicans and slam #Democrats – and one of the districts he’s targeting is #NewJersey’s own 7th congressional district.

According to paperwork filed with the Federal Election Commission, #AmericaPAC is spending $124,059 on “canvassing and field operations” to boost Rep. #TomKean Jr. (R-Westfield) and attack his Democratic opponent, #SueAltman, who is running a well-funded campaign to unseat Kean in the competitive 7th district.

https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/elon-musk-spending-money-in-nj-7-to-aid-tom-kean-jr/

Elon Musk’s X is apparently getting money from some pretty shady people.

A federal judge ordered Tuesday that a list of investors who helped fund Musk’s $44 billion takeover of X, formerly Twitter, in October 2022 be #unsealed.

Buried among the lengthy list of nearly 100 investors are several particularly troubling figures.

One entity listed is Sean Combs Capital, LLC—better known as #Sean “#Diddy” #Combs, the rapper who has been accused of rape, assault, forcible drugging, and even implicated in a sex trafficking operation.

“I don’t know if you know this, but #Puff is an investor in Twitter,” Musk said, using Combs’s nickname. “You know, he’s a good friend of mine, we text a lot.”

The list also includes several 🔸Silicon Valley entities run by billionaires like Musk himself and backing Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

One of the first names included is 🔸Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm run by #Marc #Andreessen and #Ben #Horowitz, who recently announcedthat they were backing Trump in 2024.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with the big issues that people care about,” Andreessen claimed, making clear that he was ignoring Trump’s platform on immigration and abortion, for a more favorable view on issues like crypto
—in which Andreessen and Horowitz claim to be some of the world’s largest investors.

Also on the list is 🔸Sequoia Capital, run by #Douglas #Leone and #Shaun #Maguire, who donated a whopping $1 million and $500,000 respectively to Musk’s pro-Trump super PAC, the #AmericaPAC, which is currently under investigation for the shady way it was collecting voter information.

Another investor is 🔸8VC, a venture capitalist firm run by #Joe #Lonsdale, who also donated $1 million to Musk’s PAC in June.

Lonsdale is a co-founder of intelligence contractor and data analysis platform 🔸Palantir, which was also headed by Peter Thiel.

While it’s hardly surprising that Musk’s billionaire buddies are invested in his social media company, it’s clear that X is being heavily underwritten by the same individuals funding Trump’s campaign.

Also included on the list of investors is #Saudi #Prince #Al #Waleed #bin #Talal #Al #Saud, who has long had a stake in the social media company.

In 2015, bin Talal owned 5.2 percent of Twitter, more than the company’s co-founder Jack Dorsey

https://newrepublic.com/post/185174/elon-musk-x-investors-shadiest-people-diddy

⚠️Suing advertisers⚠️

"Mr. Free Speech"
is also availing himself of the courts to try to force companies to advertise on X.

On Tuesday, X filed a lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers ( #WFA ),
an advertising trade group,
in the Wichita Falls Division of the Northern District of Texas.

Why Wichita Falls, some 300 miles from Austin, where Tesla is located?

Because the Northern District of Texas enthusiastically embraces judge shopping,
and every case in Wichita Falls goes to #Reed #OConnor,
a George W. Bush appointee who
💥routinely tries to throw out the whole of the Affordable Care Act 💥
and is a reliable vote for anything conservatives want.

🔥The WFA announced Thursday that it’s shutting down because it does not have the financial resources to fight X in court.🔥

Musk already has another case before Reed O’Connor on a similarly twisted legal theory.

Late last year, X sued Media Matters in O’Connor’s court after Media Matters accurately pointed out that ads were appearing next to the Nazi and white nationalist content that is rife on X now.

That case shouldn’t exist, period,
and it especially shouldn’t be in O’Connor’s courtroom.

As Mike Masnick pointed out over at Techdirt,
X is incorporated in Nevada,
with headquarters in California.

Media Matters is in DC, and the Media Matters writer named in the suit is in Maryland.

👉The only connection to Texas is that Reed O’Connor is very friendly to conservatives. 👈

And O’Connor has already proven himself eager to help Musk along.

Although he’s a Tesla shareholder,
he has not recused himself from the case.

And even though Media Matters has a pending motion to dismiss
precisely because the lawsuit should not be in Texas,
O’Connor refused to stay discovery,
💥which means Media Matters is racking up litigation costs while O’Connor sits on the motion to dismiss, 💥pending since March.

Back to the advertisers and X’s latest lawsuit.

X CEO Linda Yaccarino did an “open letter” explaining why X is suing the WFA,
the Global Alliance for Responsible Media,
and four individual companies
— CVS Health, Mars, Orsted, and Unilever.

It’s an antitrust lawsuit over what X calls an “illegal boycott”
that has “cost X billions of dollars.”

😨How dare companies not advertise on X,
which Yaccarino calls a “unique, dynamic, and safe environment”? 😨

The failure of private companies to give Musk and Yaccarino money is,
per Yaccarino,
“threatening your global town square.”

Had the federal courts not gone full Calvinball over the last several years, it would be easy to say this nonsense would be thrown out.

These are #private #companies,
and to the extent they are boycotting X, they have a #First #Amendment #right to do so
— in two ways:

🔹First, boycotts based on political reasons,
such as not wanting to support Nazis,
are considered #protected #speech.

🔹Next, the First Amendment provides for #freedom of #association and freedom from association.

You aren’t obliged to engage in speech you find morally repugnant
or spend money subsidizing someone else’s speech you find repugnant.

Indeed, that concept is at the heart of so much litigation by evangelical conservatives who don’t want to bake a cake for a same-sex couple or allow their insurer to provide birth control for their employees.

But don’t expect Reed O’Connor or any other conservative judges to display the same tender concern for Media Matters
or companies that don’t want their ads to run next to hate speech.

♦️Musk is, without a doubt, a uniquely terrible individual.

While his wealth and fame would always insulate him from some level of consequences,
♦️thanks to the dysfunctional federal judiciary, these days,
he can truly thrive.

#AmericaPAC #actual #crime #toothlessness #slowness #Jacob #Wohl #Jack #Burkman #NLRB #AmericaPAC #NLRB #Tesla #massive #racism #SpaceX #Alan #Albright

⚠️A scam PAC⚠️

#AmericaPAC purports to help people register to vote.

If you live in a state that isn’t a swing state, that’s what the PAC’s website does
— sends you over to your state’s voter registration page.

But if you live somewhere in play this November, the America PAC website asks you for detailed personal information,
including things utterly unrelated to voter eligibility,
like your cellphone number.

After all that is entered, ❗️the PAC doesn’t register you at all. ❗️

It doesn’t even send the user to their state registration website.❗️

It just displays a “thank you” page.

So, swing state voters may think they’re registering,
but they’re not.

🔥Instead, they’ve handed over their data to a PAC that is coordinating with the Trump campaign. 🔥

While PACs are generally not allowed to work directly with campaigns,
America PAC is a door-to-door canvassing group,
and those, inexplicably, can work hand in hand with a candidate.

However, pretending to register people to vote is probably a bridge too far.

The Michigan Secretary of State’s office is in the early stages of an investigation of the PAC.

So is the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office,
as in North Carolina, it’s an #actual #crime to say you’re submitting someone’s voter registration form and then not do so,
which is pretty close to what Musk’s PAC is doing.

⭐️The problem here is the relative #toothlessness and extreme #slowness of American jurisprudence when it comes to election violations.⭐️

Remember #Jacob #Wohl?

A sort of poor man’s James O’Keefe, Wohl and conservative lobbyist #Jack #Burkman placed tens of thousands of robocalls trying to intimidate Black voters into staying home during the 2020 election.

Two full years later, Wohl and Burkman pleaded guilty in Ohio,
getting probation,
an ankle monitor,
a requirement they spend 500 hours registering voters,
and a whopping $2,500 fine.

It took the Federal Communications Commission nearly three years to issue them a $5.1 million fine
and four years for New York state to get an agreement from the pair to pay $1.2 million.

None of that undoes the damage they may have caused in 2020,

and while those fines might be a bit much for Wohl and Burkman, it’s pocket change to Musk.

#NLRB #AmericaPAC #NLRB #Tesla #massive #racism #SpaceX #Alan #Albright

Elon Musk is attacking the core foundations of American democracy on multiple fronts.

♦️There’s his thus-far successful effort to get rid of the National Labor Relations Board ( #NLRB ).

♦️There’s his political action committee, #AmericaPAC, which pretends to help register people to vote but is just hoovering up voter data to give to the Trump campaign.

♦️And there’s his lawsuit seeking to force companies to advertise on X, despite the fact advertisers generally do not want their ads running next to the Nazi content X is full of now.

🔥All of these efforts have the potential to succeed because the federal courts are broken, and the administrative state is dying a slow and painful death. 

⚠️Immiserating workers⚠️

Let’s start with the #NLRB.
It’s no surprise that Musk is no friend to labor.
He doesn’t believe in unions, saying that they create “a lords and peasants sort of thing,” whatever that means.

When workers at his Fremont, California, #Tesla plant began an organizing campaign, 💥he tweeted that they would lose their stock options if they joined the union. 💥

This sort of threat is extremely illegal, and the NLRB sided with the workers who brought multiple unfair labor practices charges against Tesla.

Tesla also 💥prohibited workers from wearing t-shirts with union insignias, 💥even though the right to wear pro-union clothing at work has been a legally protected activity for several decades.

Then, of course, there’s the class-action lawsuit in California state court, where almost 6,000 Black workers at the Fremont factory recently got the right to sue Tesla for ignoring #massive #racism at that plant. How massive? Nooses at the workstations of Black workers massive. 

Of course, ❓why follow the law when the lower federal courts are now stuffed with anti-worker Federalist Society denizens
and the Supreme Court just gutted the regulatory state? ❓

After the NLRB filed a formal complaint against #SpaceX over its firing of several employees who wrote an internal letter critical of Musk,
💥SpaceX made sure to find a friendly Trump-appointed judge in Texas, 💥#Alan #Albright,
to entertain its theory that the NLRB itself is unconstitutional. 

In late July, 🔥Albright issued an injunction blocking the NLRB from proceeding against SpaceX, 🔥
saying that it is likely the company would prevail in showing that the NLRB,
which was created by Congress nearly 90 years ago, impermissibly infringes on the president’s power.

Members of the NLRB board and the Administrative Law Judges (ALJ) cannot be removed by the president.

That insulation from removal, of course, is critical, as otherwise the NLRB would basically cease to exist every time a Republican president takes power.

Narrowly, Albright’s holding means that the NLRB can’t go after Musk until the constitutional issue is resolved.

Broadly, Albright’s holding tees up the possibility that the anti-worker judges of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will have an opportunity to just get rid of labor protections entirely.

Given the composition of the courts, Musk doesn’t need Trump to win this November to succeed at wiping a nearly century-old agency off the map.

But Musk, of course, is all in on Trump, despite places like the New York Times pretending the man’s politics are a mystery.

Musk has also learned that he’s basically untouchable,
which is likely why his America PAC is flagrantly deceiving voters.

There will probably be no consequences for Musk at all
https://www.publicnotice.co/p/elon-musk-election-interference-trump-nlrb

Elon Musk’s new super PAC is ⭐️collecting scores of voters’ personal information
⭐️under the guise of inviting them to register to vote,
⭐️as part of his effort to boost Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

Earlier this month, #Musk denied reports that he would be donating $45 million a month to Trump’s campaign during an interview with right-wing commentator Jordan Peterson.
Instead, the technocrat clarified that he had created a new super PAC, called the #AmericaPAC.

Musk’s America PAC is a door-to-door canvassing operation,
which allows it to work in direct coordination with the Trump campaign, according to an FEC advisory from earlier this year.
This allows Musk, and his fellow Silicon Valley donors, to stick their hands
—and their cash
—right into the presidential race on Trump’s behalf.

How exactly they plan to do this is even more disturbing.

The America PAC has launched a series of 🔸digital ads using the image of Trump’s assassination,
to invite people browsing Google to 🔹“register to vote,” CNBC reported Friday.
🔹In states where the outcome is certain, such as California, the ads actually do direct them to a voter registration site.

♦️But in key battleground states, users are directed to a very different page,
which prompts them to enter their phone number, address, and age.
Once complete, users are then greeted by a “Thank You” page,
🔥with no actual link to voter registration in sight.

👉Musk’s America PAC has poured $800,000 into digital advertisements
to target voters in the key battleground states of
Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin,
according to AdImpact.

👉The information collected from user responses to this ad campaign will inform the PAC’s canvassing efforts in those states.

Musk’s America PAC has already attracted the financial support of a few Silicon Valley billionaires.
Douglas #Leone and Shaun #Maguire, general partners at Sequoia Capital, donated a whopping🔸 $1 million and $500,000 respectively, according to The American Prospect.
(Their V.C. firm is also an investor in Musk’s SpaceX.)
Joe #Lonsdale, one of the co-founders of the military contractor Palantir, donated $1 million in June.
Palantir was founded by Peter #Thiel, who helped to fund J.D. Vance’s start in politics.

Apparently, Musk’s plan for the America PAC is already off to a rough start.
After spending at least $15 million with In Field Strategies, a field vendor that organizes canvassers,
the PAC ended its relationship with the company, two people familiar told The New York Times.

It’s unclear what happened to that money, and now, more than 100 canvassers who had been hired by In Field on America PAC’s behalf in mid-June have been left scattered across the country, looking for work.

The PAC will now have to scramble to mount its canvassing campaign before early voting can begin, according to the Times.
Trump campaign manager Chris #LaCivita called the Times report “more fake news …
the New Program 100% better than the old gang. Solidly support this effort,” in a post on X.

https://newrepublic.com/post/184517/terrifying-way-elon-musk-stealing-peoples-data-help-trump