Elon Musk super PAC working with Michigan GOP ahead of presidential election

• Elon Musk super PAC working with Michigan GOP to fund get-out-the-vote operation in swing state
• America PAC is paying a firm to hire canvassers to knock doors
• New federal rules allow closer coordination between political parties and super PACs

The Michigan Republican Party is working with a super PAC founded by billionaire Elon Musk to get out the vote in the presidential election’s final weeks, leveraging new federal election rules that let them collaborate closely.

A representative from America PAC sat in on an internal Michigan GOP strategy call with delegates and activists Wednesday. As party officials touted the importance of volunteering to knock doors, they also acknowledged Musk’s outside effort would pay well. 

“Anybody that wants to sign on and has the capacity and capability to walk with a pretty good schedule, they will make a good amount of money between now and November,” Michigan GOP Finance Chair Warren Carpenter said on the call.

The outside support from Musk, the world’s richest person and a supporter of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, could be important in a state where the traditional GOP apparatus is recovering from party infighting that had – at least temporarily – driven away long-time donors. 

Related:

• Donald Trump calls Michigan auto industry an ‘afterthought.’ Here are the facts
• Michigan GOP went to war with itself. Can it rebuild to win for Donald Trump?
• Pro-Israel AIPAC offshoot spent $2.3M to help Shri Thanedar in Michigan primary

The extent of the party’s coordination with the super PAC has not been made public. Kim Doster, the America PAC representative on the Wednesday call, declined to be interviewed. 

But job postings online show an effort to hire door-to-door canvassers in Detroit, Traverse City, East Lansing, Cheboygan, Saginaw, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, Battle Creek, Jackson and Cadillac.

The firm hired by America PAC, Blitz Canvassing, is offering between $22 and $30 an hour and seeking applicants willing to work six-hour shifts six days a week.

“Come work at America PAC — The Super Pac working to elect Donald Trump and defeat Kamala Harris,” one opening reads. “Trump fights for us. Now we need you to come work — to fight back for him.”

Outside groups working independently to elect candidates is nothing new. Turning Point Action is another prominent conservative group hiring Michiganders to pursue absentee voters in Michigan ahead of the election.

But newly loosened federal election commission guidelines released in March offer parties and candidates the ability to coordinate with outside groups much more closely than ever before.

“This is the first cycle that you're really seeing this … coordination with the party, which is a pretty exciting thing,” Carpenter, the Michigan GOP finance chair, told activists on the Wednesday call. 

Under current rules, outside groups can exchange information on messaging directly with parties, but the data gleaned from face-to-face interactions would have to be purchased or donated between the organizations. Still, the rules grant campaigns the opportunity to effectively outsource integral voter outreach programs — and the funding needed to run them.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of the X social media site, has denied previous reports he planned to commit around $45 million a month to America PAC but is reportedly the PAC’s driving force.

Because super PACs can accept unlimited donations, the only limit for Musk to fund canvassing in Michigan and other battleground states is his own financial resources.

America PAC has reported spending more than $55 million in the presidential race already, but it’s not readily discernible how much has been spent in Michigan. The group has paid nearly $4.4 million to Blitz – the firm now hiring in Michigan — for canvassing as of Sept. 18.