Elon Musk's Mr. Pack spends far more on advertising on Facebook and YouTube than on Musk's own social network, X.
America Pac paid $201,000 to run dozens of ads on X (formerly Twitter) over the past three months. But it spent $3 million on thousands of ads on Facebook and Instagram over roughly the same period. Musk founded the pro-Donald Trump pack in July and gave it the equivalent of $75 million, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
According to political advertising disclosures reported by , America Pac spent more than $166,000 on 59 ads on X over an 85-day period from July 8 to October 1. wired. Musk has spent about $34,000 on X ads since taking over Pac's @America handle on October 7th. bloomberg Reported. The ads targeted several battleground states, including Georgia, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona, and Wisconsin, but were focused on Pennsylvania. According to Wired, they generated approximately 32 million impressions.
Compare these numbers to America Pac's ad buys on Facebook. In a 90-day period from July 22 to October 19, the organization spent more than $3 million running 1,910 ads, some of which were replicated on Instagram, according to Meta's ad library. America Pac paid to serve ads to users in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Arizona.
Approximately 12 ads from America Pac received more than 1 million impressions. Others won hundreds of thousands. The Meta ad library does not provide total impressions for individual advertisers, which complicates direct comparisons with ads on X.
Musk's Pack has also invested heavily in Google, which owns YouTube. According to the Google Ads Transparency Center, since early July, America Pac has lavished $1.5 million on 251 ads with Google and its subsidiaries, which is 10 times more than what Pac spent on X. . Puck spent 80% of its money on video ads, with the lion's share of ads shown in Georgia, according to Google's disclosure.
Musk boasts more than 200 million followers on X. With this many followers, you can speak to a huge audience without paying anything. I often retweet America Pack's posts. Less than 7,000 people follow Pac itself.
The spending on Facebook speaks to a shift in Musk's geographic focus. According to audience data from Meta's ad library, the largest percentage of America Pac's ads over the past 90 days targeted North Carolina. But the largest percentage of ads over the past seven days (more than 25%) targeted Pennsylvania, where Musk himself has been doing most of his in-person campaigning.
Facebook allows advertisers to narrow their audience by targeting users who have visited similar pages. America Pac follows users interested in Kelsey Grammer, trophy hunting, Kid Rock, the Boy Scouts of America, and Joe Rogan, among others.
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Since acquiring Twitter and renaming it to X in 2022, Musk has touted its advertising services and app store performance. Even in 2023, advertising still accounted for 70-75% of X's total revenue. bloomberg The report came despite Musk introducing a subscription product called Twitter Blue. The company's revenue in 2023 was just $2.5 billion, down almost half from the previous year, due in large part to weak advertising spending.
Musk is also investing in in-person events. Over the weekend, he pledged to donate $1 million a day until the election to registered voters who signed America Pac's petition. He has been handing out awards in the form of giant novelty checks at a rally in Pennsylvania over the past few days.
