Elon Musk linked non profit reportedly helped Cornel West get on presidential ballot as Independent candidate 

Cornel West, the left-wing academic and political activist, has made multiple headlines recently, as a nonprofit that helped fund his 2024 presidential ballot drives has been linked to a conservative political network bankrolled by Elon Musk. Tax records reviewed by Sludge show that People Over Party, the group that paid for petition drives to get Cornel West onto state ballots, received all of its funding that year from a single source. That source was Interstate Priorities, which disclosed a $7.7 million grant to People Over Party on its 2024 tax return, accounting for the group’s entire reported revenue that year.

The money trail doesn’t stop there. Building America’s Future, a dark money group that has received millions from Musk, disclosed giving Interstate Priorities $10.1 million on its own 2024 tax return, a figure that exactly matched Interstate Priorities’ entire reported annual revenue for that year. As per a report shared by The Wall Street Journal, tens of millions that moved through Building America’s Future in 2022 came directly from Musk. That being said, there is no direct evidence that Musk personally made the 2024 donation, which came from a single anonymous donor and totaled $74.5 million.

(The financial connections outlined above reflect findings from tax records reviewed by Sludge.)

The overlapping consultants who connected Cornel West’s ballot funding to Musk’s political machine:

The groups that bankrolled People Over Party didn’t just supply the money. Several of the consultants and directors connected to those groups had direct ties to Musk’s political operation, a situation that has left the financial web around Cornel West’s ballot access looking far more deliberate than coincidental.

Ray Zaborney, a director at Interstate Priorities, also served as treasurer of Future Coalition PAC, a super PAC funded largely by Building America’s Future. In 2024, that super PAC ran a campaign that targeted voters with contrasting messages about Harris’s position on Israel, emphasizing her support for Israel to Muslim voters while simultaneously questioning that same support to Jewish voters. Zaborney’s consulting firm, Red Maverick Media, was also paid about $1.7 million by Musk’s America PAC, primarily for political mailers, as per FEC records.

(The advertising strategy described above reflects the reported actions of Future Coalition PAC and does not represent the editorial position of Soap Central on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or related political messaging.)

Interstate also disclosed paying $420,000 in 2024 to a firm called P2 Pathway for public affairs and management consulting. P2 Pathway was co-founded by Phil Cox and Generra Peck, two political strategists whom Musk enlisted that same year to help lead his America PAC and organize voters for Trump. That being said, the connections didn’t stop there. P2 principal Katie Miller also served as a senior adviser to Building America’s Future during the 2024 campaign, as per a report shared by Sludge. She later went on to work alongside Musk at the Department of Government Efficiency, before leaving government in May 2025 to work for him in the private sector.

Victoria “Tori” Sachs was a director for Interstate in 2024 and subsequently joined P2 as a vice president in March 2025. Another vendor paid by Interstate that year was IMGE LLC, a consulting firm where Cox holds a senior partner role and that works with America PAC on text messaging and digital media campaigns. Interstate paid IMGE $1.1 million in 2024.

How People Over Party spent its money and what Cornel West’s final vote count revealed about the operation:

The financial trail behind People Over Party had already drawn attention before Sludge’s tax record review. As per a report shared by Floodlight in August 2024, the group had ties to Paul Hamrick, a Republican operative and lawyer who helped arrange ballot-access assistance. John Plishka, an officer of People Over Party, told Floodlight that he handled the group’s finances and was bound by a nondisclosure agreement. As per a report shared by the Associated Press, a broader effort by Republican lawyers and operatives to help third-party candidates, including Cornel West and Jill Stein, qualify for ballots was also documented, as Democrats warned those candidacies could pull votes away from their nominee.

People Over Party’s own tax return painted a clearer picture of where the money went. The group reported paying Hamrick’s firm $522,437 in 2024, along with $5.9 million to SYNAPS GROUP for ballot-access consulting and $316,945 to Philadelphia law firm Kleinbard for legal consulting. The Democratic National Committee filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in July 2024, naming People Over Party, Wells Marketing, and Blitz Canvassing, arguing the petitioning work done for Cornel West amounted to illegal, unreported in-kind contributions to his campaign.

(The DNC’s FEC complaint reflects that party’s stated position. The publication makes no judgment on the legal merits of those claims.)

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Interstate also operated the Fair Election Fund, which ran a six-figure advertising campaign attacking Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias, whose firm was working in October 2024 to keep Cornel West off ballots in North Carolina, Virginia, and Michigan. The fund also spent $175,000 criticizing North Carolina election officials over delays in approving ballot access for West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Its senior adviser was former Rep. Doug Collins, now Trump’s secretary of veterans affairs.

Cornel West ultimately received approximately 83,000 votes nationwide. His totals in Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina were each smaller than Trump’s margin of victory in those states.

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