Musk reportedly commits to sending "around $45M a month" to a Trump Super PAC | Hacker News Reader

Musk reportedly commits to sending "around $45M a month" to a Trump Super PAC

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12 pointsavtolik10 comments

That a single person can put so much money into the election is a problem imho

Maybe problem is that there is any money involved in first place... But that one is very hard to solve. How do you stop things like rallies or traveling by candidates...

The vast majority of the money goes to ads

One appealing idea I heard is that every American gets a voucher they can allocate as they see fit, from a pool of tax money allocated to the elections. Candidate should probably get a fixed pool as well

Citizens United ruling is what opened the door to PACs and the ability for individuals to spend above the individual limits

Citizens united isn’t even 20 years old. If you want to really feel depressed check out The Fairness Doctrine that Bush I abolished.

Empirically, once a campaign has enough money to get their message to the voters, additional money does very little to affect the result.

So this probably doesn't have much impact at all.

Wouldn't the extra money allow their message to get better "saturation"? If they can get their message out and cover more ground, be repeated more often, etc. Doesn't that give them an advantage?

That seems likely, but the research is clear that it's not what actually happens.

I haven't looked at the research myself, but among Economists this is an established fact.

To me, this is good news. The cynical view that anyone can buy an election by outspending their opponent is depressing, and I'm glad it isn't true.

BTW, it is true that the candidate who spends more usually wins. But that mostly just reflects that they're the most most popular candidate, so they get the most donations.

1% of his documented wealth is $3,000 million. Kinda wish I could watch America fall like it was a tv show but unfortunately it’ll take me down with it.

It's such a shame he doesn't want to use his platform for good. Seems to me like greed wins.

Could get rid of the bad guys on the platform... But the left does produce enormous amount of engagement so can't do that...

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