Former Ron DeSantis strategist Generra Peck working with Elon Musk on Donald Trump’s behalf

It may not be official, yet, but expect Generra Peck to become Ron DeSantis' campaign manager.

Ron DeSantis’ senior political aides were gathered last year at the Florida governor’s campaign headquarters, an office across the street from a Red Lobster on Tallahassee’s north side, planning the announcement of his candidacy for president.

Some wanted the Republican to go a baseball stadium in Tampa, near where he grew up and starred in Little League, for what they hoped would be a photogenic rally with his young family. Campaign manager Generra Peck supported a different idea, according to people familiar with the matter — one she had quietly been working on for weeks with Elon Musk, the then-new owner of the platform still known at the time as Twitter. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose internal deliberations.

DeSantis opted for an audio-only conversation with Musk on Twitter Spaces. Initially drawing interest and curiosity, the call was a disaster. The feed crashed due to technical glitches, creating an inauspicious opening for what would ultimately be DeSantis’ ill-fated campaign.

Peck, who was demoted three months into DeSantis’ candidacy, and Musk are now working together again, this time on a super political action committee, America PAC, dedicated to electing Donald Trump, who beat DeSantis on his way to winning this year’s Republican nomination.

Trump’s campaign is largely leaving paid canvassing and get-out-the-vote efforts to outside groups such as America PAC, relying on new guidance from the Federal Election Commission that allows campaigns to coordinate with outside groups in ways that were previously not allowed. But in doing so, the campaign has outsourced a core function to a coterie of untested groups that operate independently. Indeed, DeSantis’ decision to have an outside group canvass for him was attributed as one of the reasons his presidential bid failed.

The small margins that an effective turnout program can achieve could be especially important in a tight presidential race with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, drawing more enthusiasm than when President Joe Biden was seeking reelection.

America PAC has a charge of identifying likely Trump supporters in key states through door-to-door canvassing and digital outreach. It is among a handful of organizations to which Trump’s team has ceded most of the organizational effort, including Turning Point Action and Faith and Freedom Coalition.

In mid-July, America PAC dumped the vendors it had hired for digital strategy, polling, canvassing and advertising. It replaced those vendors with companies linked 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 firm called P2.

Peck is not the sole leader of the PAC. In addition to Peck and Cox, Dave Rexrode, another top aide on the Glenn Youngkin campaign, is also a senior adviser.

People familiar with the matter say Peck — and DeSantis — have cultivated close ties with Musk.

About a month before DeSantis launched his campaign on Twitter Spaces, Peck held a late-night Zoom meeting with Musk, who was overseas, as well as Musk’s friend and fellow tech billionaire David Sacks and pro-DeSantis super PAC chairman Adam Laxalt, about Musk’s interest in contributing to DeSantis’ looming presidential campaign.

After that meeting, Peck told members of DeSantis’ political team that she expected Musk to be the biggest player in the 20-year history of super PACs, groups that can take unlimited sums and advocate for a candidate as long as they do not coordinate with campaigns.

From that point on, Peck guarded Musk carefully, the people familiar with the operations said.

Where typically senior political operatives in contact with major donors hand off those relationships to a campaign’s finance director, Peck did not in Musk’s case, maintaining her role as the single DeSantis campaign conduit to Musk. “It was all her,” one person said.

Likewise, Peck typically did not involve senior advisers to Never Back Down, the super PAC that DeSantis had entrusted with his organizational efforts in early states, to participate in calls with Musk. Though there are rules that bar coordination between campaigns and super PACs, those can be accommodated in conference calls by asking PAC officials to drop off the call during strategy discussions.

Peck kept communications with Musk to herself, to the point that top aides were barred from discussing Musk’s interest in the campaign.

“Nobody was able to talk to engage with the Elon stuff,” the source said. “It was clear during and immediately after the rollout that Generra was the one talking to them, exclusively so.”

Others in DeSantis’ political orbit said there was no need for Musk to be in contact with the Florida governor’s campaign, that the billionaire defies the profile of even the biggest political donors. Those who say Musk wasn’t in touch with key staff could be voicing bitterness that they didn’t have more access to him, they say.

__

Republished with permission of the Associated Press.