(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Musk targets ActBlue for Tesla Protests [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-09
It begins with a New York Times article from March 5th. There seems to have been an exodus of top management personnel and lawyers from the PAC that supports the Democratic Party. Elon Musk wants all the dirt on them he can find as he thinks the are behind the protest groups that are both protesting and publicizing boycotting Tesla.
ActBlue handles and processes campaign contributions going directly to the candidate of your choice using the platform. They charge a 3.95% processing fee on every contribution. They don't get all of that because the credit card companies charge them their processing fee.
That fee can range from 1.5% to 4%. ActBlue processed $3.8 billion in contributions in 2023 and 2024, and the more money you put through the credit card companies, the lower the fee. Let's say the card company takes 2% on average, because it will vary between Visa, Mastercard, Discover, Capitol One, Amex, etc. ActBlue is left with 1.95% to pay their staff and bills.
Their parts are:
ActBlue - nonprofit IRS registered as a 527 political organization. ActBlue Civics - issue advocacy group IRS registered as a 501(c) organization. AB Charities - helps 501(c)(3) charities and it is a 501(c)(3) itself.
Now you've got the background. Why top employees at ActBlue have left is a mystery. Nobody is talking. Every single report says the same thing, 7 people leaving and using The New York Times as their source.
Elon Musk wants to know why the people left ActBlue because he wants all the ammunition he can get.
Here's his post from yesterday, and Trump retweeted it on Truth Social:
"An investigation has found..." There is no investigation. Musk probably wants to start one to scare them off protesting.
He's pushing all the buttons on conspiracy theories of billionaire donors putting their money through ActBlue to finance groups that just don't like Musk. Tesla is an easy target because the cars and showrooms are all over the place.
Everybody has a right and a very good reason to hate Musk. Elon better get used to it or he should go back to companies that are tanking in his absence. Another one of his Starships just blew up, too.
I looked at databases at Opensecrets.org for George Soros and there are lots of donations, but they all go directly to candidates or state parties. I didn't see anything going to ActBlue.
Reid Hoffman on ProPublica's database shows some contributions to ActBlue non-federal, meaning just what it sounds like.
ProPublica showed one ActBlue non-federal donation for Herbert Sandler.
Patricia Bauman shows small ActBlue donations over the years.
Leah Hunt-Hendrix ActBlue non-federal over the years of $5, $250, one $5,000, a single $10,000 in 2015.
This is without a doubt a completely ridiculous charge about some nefarious funding by ActBlue.
The only thing that happened was last year they were asked by the Committee on House Administration why they were not asking for the CVV code to process credit cards. They changed their setup almost immediately. They also reject foreign pre-paid cards, domestic gift cards and anything that has high risk according to their solution provider, Sift. Sift is a payment protection system that literally sifts through the source to find if it's valid.
The Committee's last action was October 30th asking for ActBlue's payment verification policies. That's it. If there was anything the Republicans could have turned up, it would be all over the news.
Nope. The only thing is seven people leaving. That's it.
Here's the Troublemakers website and a picture from Feb.13th:
So they protest outside of one Tesla showroom in Seattle. Big deal.
The Disruption Project hasn't updated their website since 2023, and were working on Gaza at the time.
The Action Network has a Disruption Project which they call TeslaTakeDown in lots of cities. This is the group Musk should fear, he's just ignorant to the group's real name.
Rise and Resist has their own separate Tesla Takedown effort.
Indivisible just wants to get rid of Trump and Musk.
The Democratic Socialists of America list Bernie Sanders as their inspiration. Doesn't say anything about Musk or Tesla.
There is no financial link between ActBlue and and these organizations. There is no link between the billionaires and ActBlue, except some donations over two decades. The is no link between the billionaires and the protest groups.
It just looks like Musk is running scared and he thinks he has a scoop about the 7 people leaving ActBlue, and straining to put the heat on ActBlue now that he has the imaginary power that people are letting him have.
I would expect that suddenly there will be a Justice Dept. investigation to try to pick up where the House committee left off, but there's no fire, and even no smoke.
Many of the stories say there's an investigation already going on, including Musk. Where? Subject of an inquiry. By whom?
Here's another idiot proving he's an idiot:
Social media is, of course, being led by Musk down the rabbit hole and making fools of themselves.
What's new?
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/3/9/2309009/-Musk-targets-Actblue-for-Tesla-Protests?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/