Ads circulating on social media that look as though they're from the Harris campaign, but completely misrepresent Vice President Kamala Harris' stances and policies, are being published by a "dark money network" heavily funded by Elon Musk.
The account posting the ads, titled Progress 2028, represents itself as the Democratic counterpart to the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, posting digital flyers and other political advertisement material that deliberately misleads viewers into believing that the materials are from the Harris campaign.
The ads claim that Vice President Harris supports policy measures she actually does not, such as mandatory gun-buyback programs, providing undocumented immigrants with Medicare benefits and driver's licenses or even banning fracking.
The ads are being paid for and produced by Building America's Future, a dark money network which has received immense amounts of funding from billionaire Elon Musk, according to Open Secrets. In fact, it was revealed that Musk had been funneling tens of millions into the group for years, according to a report published by the Wall Street Journal.
Meta's publicly accessible ad library demonstrates that Progress 2028 has published 13 of these ads so far, amassing a total of 8.7 million impressions. The ads, though deliberately misleading, are not technically illegal as they are protected by the First Amendment despite the falsehoods they contain.
"The tactic isn't new," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, to NPR. "Its potential reach and impact are. Social media greatly expanded the capacity of well-financed, skilled ad buyers to micro-target susceptible undecided voters without risking a backlash from those likely to recognize the deception."
"It truthfully discloses who is paying for the ad, but that entity sounds like a Harris supporting organization, when it is not," said co-president of the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen, Robert Weissman, who has campaigned for Meta to remove the false ads.
Progress 2028 has also been sending text messages to potential voters in which they once again misrepresent Harris' views on certain policy issues. In fact, many of the texts provide a link to a Progress 2028 website, which itself claims Harris supports a number of positions she actually doesn't.
"When Kamala Harris takes office, we will have a never-before-seen opportunity to enact sweeping reforms that will ensure that equity across every corner of America is finally a reality," says the website.
"Whether they are impactful is another question, but they are highly likely to deceive," Weissman continued. "They seem real and the only way to recognize they are not is if you are a highly informed voter who knows the claims are untrue."
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