Ron DeSantis’ top political advisers gathered last year at the Florida governor’s campaign headquarters, an office across the street from a Red Lobster in north Tallahassee, to prepare for the announcement of his presidential candidacy.
Some wanted the Republican to go to a Tampa baseball stadium, near where he grew up and starred in Little League football, for what they hoped would be a photogenic gathering with his young family. Campaign manager Generra Peck backed a different idea, according to people familiar with the matter — one she had been quietly working on for weeks with Elon Musk, the then-new owner of the platform then known as Twitter. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
DeSantis opted for an audio-only conversation with Musk on Twitter Spaces. The conversation initially generated interest and curiosity, but was a disaster. The feed crashed due to technical glitches, creating an ominous opening for what would ultimately be DeSantis’ ill-fated campaign.
Peck, who was demoted three months into DeSantis’s candidacy, and Musk are now working together again, this time on a major political action committee, America PAC, that aims to get Donald Trump elected. Trump defeated DeSantis to win the Republican nomination this year.
Trump’s campaign is largely turning paid campaigning and get-out-the-vote efforts over to outside groups like America PAC, relying on new Federal Election Commission guidelines that allow campaigns to coordinate with outside groups in ways they previously weren’t allowed. But in doing so, the campaign has outsourced a core function to a cabal of untested groups operating independently. DeSantis’ decision to let an outside group run his campaign for him was even blamed as one of the reasons his presidential bid failed.
The narrow margins that an effective turnout program can achieve could be especially important in a close presidential race, where Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, could generate more enthusiasm than when President Joe Biden was seeking re-election.
America PAC working to identify likely Trump supporters
America PAC is tasked with identifying likely Trump supporters in key states through door-to-door canvassing and digital outreach. It is one of a handful of organizations to which Trump’s team has delegated the bulk of its organizing effort, including Turning Point Action and the Faith and Freedom Coalition.
Musk’s work and his role in it have generated an unusual level of interest.
“America PAC uses the data it collects to register voters and encourage them to vote,” attorneys for the group wrote in an Aug. 7 letter to an aide to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, whose office was named in an Aug. 4 CNBC story as an investigator into the group’s efforts. “Granted, not all of our plans or strategies are public at this time, but any investigation into our efforts will prove premature and imprudent.”
Benson’s office, which made the letter public, responded two days later, saying it had announced an investigation “in response to concerns that potential voters in Michigan were being misled by an America PAC website into believing they were registered to vote when, in fact, they were not.”
Musk has denied reports that he is funding pro-Trump efforts to the tune of $45 million a month this year. But he has been outspoken in his support for Trump and his backing of conservative voices on the platform he rebranded from Twitter to X.
“The PAC’s core values are supporting meritocracy and individual liberty,” Musk wrote in a July post. “Republicans are largely, but not entirely, on the side of meritocracy and liberty.”
A year after Trump repeatedly mocked DeSantis’ botched rollout, he appeared on the same platform this week to talk to Musk. But their call was also plagued by glitches and delayed by 40 minutes, followed by a lengthy conversation in which Trump’s audio often sounded slurred.
“Based on that two-hour X mess, if you get Musk as a client, that’s good, I guess. But if you don’t, you can see how that’s good, too,” said Mark Campbell, who managed the winning 2021 campaign of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R-Va. “Because as far as Elon Musk getting into politics, he’s 0 for 2.”
A spokesman for America PAC declined to comment. Peck did not respond to messages seeking comment.
America PAC brings in DeSantis alumni
In mid-July, America PAC dumped the vendors it had hired for digital strategy, polling, canvassing and advertising, replacing them with firms tied to Phil Cox, another former DeSantis campaign aide and former executive director of the Republican Governors Association who is a business partner of Peck’s in a company called P2.
Peck is not the only leader of the PAC. In addition to Peck and Cox, Dave Rexrode, another top adviser to the Youngkin campaign, is also a senior adviser.
Peck and DeSantis have close ties to Musk, according to people familiar with the matter.
About a month before DeSantis launched his campaign on Twitter Spaces, Peck had a late-night Zoom meeting with Musk, who was out of the country, as well as Musk’s friend and fellow tech billionaire David Sacks and pro-DeSantis super PAC chairman Adam Laxalt. They discussed Musk’s interest in contributing to DeSantis’ impending presidential campaign.
After that meeting, Peck told members of DeSantis’ political team that she expected Musk to become the biggest player in the 20-year history of super PACs, groups that can take unlimited amounts of money and advocate for a candidate as long as they don’t work with campaigns.
From that point on, Peck kept a close eye on Musk, insiders said.
While senior political operatives who have contact with major donors typically hand those relationships over to a campaign’s finance director, Peck did not do that in Musk’s case. She retained her role as the DeSantis campaign’s sole conduit to Musk. “It was all hers,” one said.
Peck also generally did not bring in senior advisers from Never Back Down, the super PAC that DeSantis had entrusted with his organizing efforts in the early states, to participate in calls with Musk. While there are rules prohibiting coordination between campaigns and super PACs, that can be accommodated on conference calls by asking PAC officials to leave the call during strategic discussions.
Peck kept her communications with Musk secret, to the point that her top advisers were not allowed to discuss Musk’s interest in the campaign.
“No one was able to talk to get into the Elon stuff,” the source said. “It was clear during and immediately after the rollout that Generra was the one talking to them, exclusively.”
Others in DeSantis’s political circle said Musk had no need to have contact with the Florida governor’s campaign, that the billionaire defies the profile of even the biggest political donors. Those who say Musk was cut off from key staffers may express bitterness that they didn’t have more access to him, they say.
Others wonder how much of a stake the America PAC will have
Ultimately, Musk is not listed in Federal Election Commission records as having donated to DeSantis’ campaign or Never Back Down.
Peck was Youngkin’s campaign policy director. Campbell, then campaign manager, described Peck as “brilliant on the policy front” but said he wasn’t sure about her experience running a campaign.
“If she’s also trying to develop Elon Musk, I’m not sure that’s much different than what a lot of political consultants do, which is merge two different sides of their business, the political side and the business side,” Campbell said.
Campaigning and canvassing voters are among the most visible parts of a campaign, even though some strategists say observers place too much emphasis on the so-called “ground game.” Campbell argued that both candidates, not outsiders, would determine the fate of the race.
“Anything that has to do with Musk is secondary,” he said.
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Associated Press editor Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Mich., contributed to this report.