Cover photo: Canvassing worker Matthew Dimitri watching himself via surveillance system installed inside the apartment his boss rented to him.
In the months leading up to the 2024 US presidential elections, Elon Musk financed a frantic scramble to collect electoral data and get out the vote for Donald Trump. Contracting a variety of vendors across multiple states, his America PAC soon became one of the primary controversies surrounding the elections. Founded on July 9, 2024, the newborn Political Action Committee (PAC) faced several lawsuits alleging criminal campaign tactics, as the world’s richest man threw in more than $250 million to get Trump in the Oval Office.
America PACs hastily organized, multimillion dollar, canvassing campaign relied on a web of subcontractors and out-of-state workers who were deployed in key battleground states—including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan—as paid door knockers. The corporatized campaign to get Trump re-elected became a groundbreaking showcase of money-driven electoral culture in the wake of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) lifting long-standing campaign financing regulations earlier this year. The new guideline enabled PACs to coordinate canvassing work and share electoral data directly with election campaigns. In effect, it allowed Musk and other billionaires in his surroundings to commit unlimited funds to the costly and labor-intensive canvassing, data extraction, and door knocking operations of Trump’s campaign. An inside view at this voting drive reveals a world of chaos and questionable practices.
“It was all horrible, everyone above me was just so disorganized. They just worked us like slaves and we did not get compensated fairly at all,” said Matthew Dimitri, a 32-year-old Coloradoan, after the elections were over. Starting in June, Dimitri worked as a seasonal canvasser for a small Colorado Springs based company Pivotal Politics. Through a chain of subcontractors, he eventually became one of the door knockers America PAC and its main canvassing contractor, the Republican-aligned Blitz Canvassing, mobilized in Wisconsin and Michigan to help tilt the vote in Trump’s favor.
Nearly two months after his work for Pivotal Politics in the summer ended, Dimitri had become indebted to his boss who had also become his landlord, owing him approximately $1,400 at the time of publication. He claims his boss used the rental debt as a leverage to coerce him to accept out-of-state work at America PACs pro-Trump campaign in September. Dimitri says he was misled about the real earnings. According to him, his boss at Pivotal Politics promised a $4,000 reward for two days of work in Wisconsin. His real earnings ranged in hundreds per week, depending how many doors he knocked, after nearly a month of work in multiple states.
America PAC and its subcontractors have been accused of abusive working conditions and sued for labor violations. Talking to Wired Magazine, other workers at Blitz Canvassing said they learned they would campaign for Trump only after signing non-disclosure agreements. Stranded in Michigan, they were allegedly threatened with losing their company-provided accommodation for failing to meet unrealistic voter engagement targets. Starting in September, Turning Point followed Dimitri’s work journey across three different states to gain deeper insight in Elon Musk’s novel campaign that was outsourced to him and other super PACs instead of the Republican National Commission who usually ran get-out-the-vote operations.
Employed as an “independent contractor,” Dimitri was not entitled to overtime compensations or standard safeguards of employment contracts. Despite working 60-80 hours a week, he returned the lion’s share of his earnings back to his employer and was not compensated for necessary work-related expenses, such as accommodation and transportation costs. He met a fellow out-of-state worker sleeping in his car despite being promised a hotel room. At times, Dimitri’s salary hardly covered the direct expenses of conducting his work, according to receipts reviewed by Turning Point. There were also days that he was not given any working hours at all.
Colorado
While Elon Musk was finalizing the setup of his America PAC in June 2024, Dimitri was in acute need of seasonal work. Looking through local job markets, he had come across Pivotal Politics, a small company in Colorado Springs which marketed itself as the “ultimate partner for political canvassing and petition campaigns.” The company was hiring canvassers, seemingly in anticipation of the election season.
Dimitri applied under the impression that the company would be running local campaigns and surveys for a broad range of candidates and issues. Little did he know that his path would cross Trump’s campaign or America PAC, or that he would be expected to work in other states. In mid-June, he started knocking doors around Colorado Springs, trying to get a variety of third-party candidates on the ballot in the state. He also rented a room from his boss. Then, his work hours suddenly dried out in mid-Summer.
“After I signed the lease, a week later, Pivotal Politics/Blitz announced in a [Whatsapp] group chat that there would be no more work ‘till the near future,” Dimitri said. “I had just signed the [contract] that locked me in the lease, but I had no income.”
The piling rent bills his boss issued were signed by “Marco’s Room Rental,” but there is no registered company with that name in the state of Colorado. The room Dimitri rented is located in the same address where Pivotal Politics LLC corporate office is registered, and the rent was paid to Marco Granger-Rivera’s personal account. Granger-Rivera is the registered agent of Pivotal Politics, the owner of the property, and the executive manager of Dimitri’s canvassing work at the time.
Dimitri said he was alarmed by the fact that the rental apartment had an inward-facing security system, with video cameras monitoring common rooms (cover photo). The landlord being his employer, Dimitri grew nervous not knowing if the system recorded audio as well, and if he could safely discuss work-related problems, such as the sudden lack of shifts and income, on phone at home. The other residents were not employees of Pivotal Politics as far as Dimitri could tell. There is no indication that other America PAC subcontractors commingled landlord and employer roles.
After staying without work shifts in July, Dimitri started to search for other jobs and sources of income. Finally, in September, Granger-Rivera approached him with a suspiciously lucrative offer. He wanted Dimitri to take subcontracted gigs from America PAC and Blitz Canvassing in other states. At that point, Dimitri already owed him overdue rents.
“He had coerced me to go there because I owed him all that rent,” Dimitri said later in December. “Once I got there, it [became] more explicit. He was basically saying I have to do this.”
When Dimitri found out that the Blitz Canvassing-linked Pivotal Politics was effectively an organ of the Trump campaign, he contacted Turning Point to offer an inside view to Elon Musk’s operation. He said Granger-Rivera was persuading him to take the work by promising up to $4,000 earnings for a two-day work trip in Wisconsin. However, it soon turned out the estimate was based on far-fetched amounts of door knocks per day. Also the trips turned out longer than initially marketed.
Wisconsin
On September 29, Dmitri flew from Colorado to Wisconsin for a two-days work trip that eventually extended into nearly one-month journey across multiple states. Upon arrival, Granger-Rivera had him rent a car and head to a hotel, though soon after he called Dimitri again to turn back and pick up another canvasser from the Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport.
”I met Gustavo at the airport, and I didn’t know that we would share a hotel room until after the orientation that day. I thought I had the room for myself,” said Dimitri. Although he did not mind sharing the room with his coworker, he started growing anxious about the arbitrarily changing working conditions. One of the pamphlets spread in the orientation event told the workers not to talk with the press.
”About three days in or so, we decided to let another guy stay with us, because we felt sorry for him because he was [sleeping] in his car,” Dimitri said referring to an out-of-state canvasser who slept in the hotel’s parking lot. “He was told that he would have a hotel room but he didn’t. He was one of the three Venezuelans I met.”
”I got the contract signed [only] until three or four days into working in Wisconsin. It was like ‘by the way, you have to sign this,’” Dimitri continued. The “independent contractor agreement,” signed on October 4, 2024, levied accommodation and transportation costs, and basically all other work-related expenses, on Dimitri. The contract also demanded him to pay work-related expenses, such as rent for the car, to the company even if the expenses exceeded his salary.
According to a rental agreement seen by Turning Point, Pivotal Politics charged $836.04 for a week’s rent of a car which was necessary for Dimitri to canvass multiple neighborhoods and counties. Dimitri said he also paid between $25 and $30 a day for fuel. While other Blitz workers have reportedly had their lodgings covered by the company, it is unclear why accommodation was not provided for Dimitri and his fellow workers. It is also unclear whether Blitz covered the accommodation costs to Pivotal Politics.
The arrangement between Blitz Canvassing and Pivotal Politics was not transparent to the workers. Even though Blitz paid Dimitri’s salary and had executive authority over his work, his contract was signed with Pivotal Politics LLC without a mention of Blitz Canvassing (or America PAC). It was also not transparent what financial arrangements the two companies had between them. While different costs were systematically subtracted from his salary, Dimitri’s earnings fell significantly below the marketed $4,000, ranging in hundreds per week.
”He coordinated with Justin [Prather] from America PAC, my boss in Wisconsin, right before we got paid,” said Dimitri. “Justin was like ‘I need to confirm a few things with Marco [Granger-Rivera] before I can pay you,’ which meant that he probably got the money before it was sent to me.”
On October 3, when Dimitri was already working in Wisconsin, Granger-Rivera sent him a text message, saying “Matt you are getting 1.60 a door,” without further explanation. While the compensation rate was initially agreed to be $1.75 per door, Dimitri’s contract with Pivotal Politics—signed the day after Granger-Rivera’s text message—reduced the rate at $1.60 per door, raising the question if Pivotal Politics took an additional $0.15 cut from each knocked door, acting as a middleman between Dimitri and Blitz.
Neither Granger-Rivera nor Justin-James Prather commented to Turning Point about the arrangements or other aspects of the story. Granger-Rivera did not respond to repeated interview requests. “Sorry. I have signed NDAs regarding the contract. Have a nice day,” replied Prather in a text message, referring to a non-disclosure agreement with the company.
Through Washington to Michigan
From Wisconsin, Dimitri’s journey continued to Seattle, Washington. When Dimitri landed, he was picked up at the airport by Granger-Rivera. He canvassed the next day and, on October 11, he picked up Granger-Rivera from the airport early in the morning.
According to Dimitri, Granger-Rivera said he wanted to put unnamed “Argentinians” to work in Seattle pretending to be him, while he would begin canvassing in Michigan. Dimitri says that in the parking lot of a Panera Bread in Seattle, Granger-Rivera angrily warned him not to mention “the Argentinians” to anyone.
“He made me sit in silence while he held a zoom conference meeting and made me get him a straw and napkins. Then grudgingly handed over the steak and egg burrito he bought me,” said Dimitri. After leaving the Panera Bread, Granger-Rivera used Google Translate to talk with the Argentinians on his phone in the car with Dimitri in the passenger seat. Granger-Rivera told Dimitri he would “never meet” the Argentinians.
”I think he was trying to scam me and the Argentinians… and Blitz. He was asking my app login stuff so they could log in [to my account],” said Dimitri. He referred to the Campaign Sidekick and Canvasser apps which are used for performance monitoring and surveillance. According to Dimitri, he received calls from an auditing company about irregularities in his statistics, such as door knocks on unusual times (05:30 am), in the following days.
After the exchange in the car, Granger-Rivera left Dimitri to wander at a mall for several hours, and finally picked him up and dropped him off at the airport to catch the flight to his new destination.
From Seattle, Dimitri took a long flight through Las Vegas, Nevada, to Detroit, Michigan. Around the same time, the Argentinians got to work in his stead in Seattle. Arriving in Michigan, Dimitri spent two days at an AirBnB and, on the third day, he “had to wander around like a homeless person at a mall.”
He was given a rental car that was in fact assigned on his coworker’s name. While handing over the keys, the coworker did not know if the car rent had been paid for further lease and warned Dimitri that he may get arrested if stopped due to the unpaid lease and the car not being in his name.
”I feel I’ve been human trafficked, because I was told I would only be out of town for two days in Wisconsin. It’s been nearly three weeks […] going across multiple states,” Dimitri lamented on a video he recorded on October 17. “My account is constantly going negative, I am constantly having to ask my family for money […] This is like a cult.”
While in Detroit, Dimitri had worked nearly 80 hours the earlier week and was compensated only $393. According to him, the payments were late and he and his coworkers had to “keep calling frantically” to get paid. Payment receipts confirm he received the $393 in two patches on October 12 and 13 from Justin-James Prather on PayPal. Dimitri started to grow tired of earnings consistently falling to a fraction of the marketed compensation.
”It was really bad [already] in Colorado. We would never get paid for overtime. I worked 60 hours one week and my skin ripped off in some parts [because of sunburn], and I only got paid like $575,” he said.
Dimitri’s stay in Michigan would eventually come to an end after America PACs auditors, following him on the streets by car, caught the frustrated canvasser falsifying data on the Campaign Sidekick app on the fifth and final day of his work. The company decided to appropriate his salary for the day and for the full four-days work he had done in Michigan before the incident. Dimitri returned to Colorado without any compensation for the last part of his journey.
