- Elon Musk dumped millions into Pennsylvania and camped out in the state to deliver it to Trump.
- His super PAC built a last-minute canvassing effort and spearheaded untested ground-game techniques.
- Musk's sprawling, risky moves could inaugurate a "new era" in campaign spending, a source told BI.
Elon Musk, the world's richest man, took a frenzied and controversial gamble on the biggest swing state in the 2024 race, and it paid off. President-elect Donald Trump won Pennsylvania and, with it, another four years in the White House.
Between opaque money channels and the chaos of day-to-day ground operations, the full scope of Musk's efforts in the Keystone State aren't yet clear. But they were substantial.
On July 13, Musk publicized his support for Trump on X, posting a video of the former president after he survived an assassination attempt in Butler County, PA.
Musk set up a war room of sorts in Pittsburgh and spent the race's final weeks galavanting across the state. He urged Pennsylvania voters to head to the polls in apocalyptic terms, telling them in late October that the 2024 election would determine "the fate of Western civilization."
Musk spent more than $130 million on the election, much of it late in the game.
Musk's Keystone State tour-de-force began on October 5, when he attended his first campaign rally alongside Trump in Butler, PA. Beyond appearing beside Trump, Musk hosted his own events in Pennsylvania.
Between October 17 and October 20, he hosted four town halls in as many days across the state. On October 26, he hosted another town hall.
Tom Eddy, chairman of the Erie County Republican Committee, told BI the day after the election that Musk is a well-liked figure in the state, particularly because he's created successful companies.
"And those things can play very well with the American economy," Eddy said, noting that the issue was top of mind for many voters in his swing district that ultimately voted for Trump.
Much of Musk's work in Pennsylvania happened through the super PAC he created, America PAC.
Under new legal guidance for 2024, these outside groups can coordinate directly with campaigns. Trump's campaign and America PAC signed a data-sharing agreement, which let them jointly determine which voters to target. For the most part, America PAC spent its money on canvassing and digital advertising.
According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission in late October, Musk funneled just under $119 million into his PAC, including $43.6 million in the first two weeks of October alone. As of October 16, he publicly disclosed spending more than $130 million overall to help Trump and Republicans, though donations made past that date won't appear on public filings until late November. It remains unknown how much Musk has given to "dark money" groups, which are nonprofits that don't disclose their donors.
Musk, the Trump campaign, and the Harris campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
The ground game was key to Musk's effort.
In Musk's mind, voter mobilization was key to winning Pennsylvania, and he was particularly focused on turning out low-propensity voters in rural areas, the New York Times reported. He even hired Chris Young, a Republican operative with extensive experience in field operations, to guide his political spending.
Campaigns and outside groups typically spend months, if not years, building the architecture of voter mobilization. Some Democrats doubted America PAC's efforts ahead of Election Day.
"You gotta find the people. You gotta train the people. You gotta design and print everything. You gotta use the data," Daniel Fee, a Democratic strategist in Pennsylvania, told Business Insider before the election. "Field is not like, 'I knocked on your door and now I'm done.'"
He added, "If late money was all you needed, that's all anybody would do."
But Charlie Gerow, a Republican strategist in Pennsylvania, told BI on Wednesday that Musk's positive effort was undoubtedly felt on the ground.
"Elon Musk took up residency here the last week to 10 days of the campaign and was a big help in pushing President Trump over the finish line," he said.
Republican leaders in three key Pennsylvania counties told Business Insider before the election that they were confident in America PAC's get-out-the-vote effort. Canvassers for America PAC knocked on around 2.3 million doors in Pennsylvania alone, the Times reported.
On Wednesday, Eddy said that while it's hard to credit just one person, Musk "obviously" had an impact in improving Trump's canvassing effort.
Patricia Poprik, the chairwoman of the Bucks County Republican Committee, said Republicans in the state were thrilled to have the mogul on their side. "People are enjoying it, and they like seeing him," she said two days before the election.
Other Republican officials BI spoke with echoed Poprik.
"It's been kind of surreal, to be honest," Christian Nascimento, chair of the Montgomery County Republican Committee, said. "He is just this singular figure."
America PAC used unconventional, untested get-out-the-vote efforts.
America PAC didn't just rely on traditional door-knocking — it also turned to novel methods, including some that landed the group in legal jeopardy. The PAC offered registered voters in Pennsylvania $100 to sign a petition in support of the First and Second Amendments, and another $100 to refer another signer. Registered voters in other swing states could earn $47 per referral.
At an America PAC event in Harrisburg, PA on October 19, Musk announced that he would award $1 million each day through November 5 to a swing state voter who signed the petition. The first winner, John Dreher, hailed from Pennsylvania.
Democrats and legal scholars were quick to question if the move violated election law. The Department of Justice sent Musk a warning letter and the Philadelphia District Attorney filed a civil case, calling the petition an "unlawful lottery."
Donald Green, a professor at Columbia University who studies field efforts, told BI that Musk's project could inaugurate a "new era" of pumping money into campaigns.
"This certainly opens the door to doing things that don't pay for people to vote, but certainly pay people to do things that are tip-toeing up to the vote," he told BI the day after the election.
As of October 29, America PAC had mailed out more than 87,000 checks to people who referred petition signers, according to a post from the organization on X.
Green told BI that the petition was likely most useful for the quiet data it collected, which was shared with the Trump campaign under new federal election rules.
"If the take-home message from this campaign is that these kinds of last-minute list-building operations are effective, you can expect to see more of them," Green said ahead of the election. "I would say that the magic is not the petition per se, but the list-building that follows from it."
Musk's work in Pennsylvania reverberated beyond state borders.
Musk's sprawling, last-minute effort in Pennsylvania had stakes beyond his wallet. Now that Trump has won the White House, thanks partly to the state's 19 Electoral College votes, Musk stands to amass even more power. The president-elect offered to put him in charge of a "Government Efficiency Commission" that oversees the very agencies that regulate Musk's many businesses.
"If he loses, I'm fucked," Musk said on a podcast at the beginning of October.
Lucky for Musk, both he and Trump came out on top — in Pennsylvania and pretty much everywhere else.