Campaigners for Elon Musk’s America PAC were fired and stranded in Michigan after speaking out

“Our subcontractors should never have transported their movers in U-Haul trucks, and those involved were immediately reprimanded,” Tim Pollard of Blitz Canvassing told WIRED. .

On Wednesday, October 30, Muldrow and her fellow door knockers were fired hours after the WIRED story was published.

At first, some people had trouble logging into Campaign Sidekick, the glitchy app used by America PAC for campaigning. There was confusion before they were finally told it was over: “Everyone was fired,” Jones, who served as manager of the door knockers, said in a GroupMe chat , according to screenshots obtained by WIRED.

Jones did not respond to a request for comment.

Muldrow thought Jones might be joking about people getting fired, but some knockers found they were locked out of Operation Sidekick, according to the group chat.

“I called my mom right away,” Muldrow said. “My mom told me I was overreacting because, well, that’s it [my] cousin, so she said, ‘Oh, maybe she’s teasing you guys. Don’t take it literally.” And my mother said, ‘I sent you up there in the first place. You went with her. If anything, you’ll get your flight home through her. She won’t leave you stranded.’”

Then, Muldrow said, Jones began asking door knockers which of them had spoken to the press.

As arguments ensued, Muldrow began to fear for his safety. Muldrow packed his things and called Connor Berdy, a 29-year-old political consultant based in Warren, Michigan and founder of Vote For Change LLC, a consulting group in Southeast Michigan, for organizing work. your community.

Muldrow had met Berdy—who runs election campaigns for school board, county commission, and judicial candidates—when by chance, one of his staffers struck up a conversation with her while she were canvassing near their home on October 23. Berdy and Muldrow met with Lunch soon after, and Muldrow told him about how door knockers in her group had been tricked, threatened, and driven away. how to get around U-Hauls to their door knocking location.

Management “clearly did not prioritize worker safety or operational integrity,” Berdy said.

Berdy then arrives and pretends to be an Uber driver to get Muldrow out of the situation. He bought Muldrow a flight back to Florida with his own money.