Elon Musk may have started a super PAC and poured over $75 million into supporting former President Donald J. Trump, but for months he wouldn’t do something far cheaper and less glamorous: donate the legal maximum to Mr. Trump’s campaign.
Mr. Musk had flummoxed some Trump fund-raising officials by declining to give a “super max” check to Mr. Trump’s campaign, according to a person briefed on the conversations. As recently as earlier this month, Trump officials believed he was unwilling to do so, the person said.
But on Monday evening Mr. Trump’s campaign texted supporters, mostly in all caps, aiming to leverage a change in Mr. Musk’s stance: “Elon Musk has big news. He will match every dollar this message raises.”
The truth was in the fine print. Sentences preceded by an asterisk said that Mr. Musk would “match all donations in response to this solicitation with a contribution to Trump 47 Committee Inc., until he has reached his personal legal maximum of $924,600.”
“Once the aggregate amount is surpassed,” the fine print continued, “subsequent donations will no longer be matched.”
The “super max” check includes money that goes to national and state party committees, along with segregated accounts for matters like vote recounts and building headquarters renovations. Those gifts are capped shy of $1 million, but super PAC contributions can be unlimited in size.
Mr. Musk has always sought to do things his own way. He started his own super PAC in part so he could fix the ground game that he thought the Republican Party’s leadership had broken. And he has run his super PAC his own way, too, making himself the star of his own effort.
It is not uncommon for big donors to shovel millions to a super PAC but also to cut the legal maximum check to the campaign itself. Campaign dollars are generally considered more valuable than super PAC dollars because the candidate has control over how the money is spent.
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