When Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune said earlier this year that an online pressure campaign to pass a Republican bill imposing new proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration was being driven by a “paid influencer ecosystem,” the right-wing X personality known as ALX was outraged.
“I just lost any respect I ever had for @LeaderJohnThune,” ALX wrote to his more than 1 million followers. Thune, he said, was claiming that the “organic support behind Voter ID and the SAVE America Act is from ‘paid influencers.’”
Weeks later, onstage at CPAC, ALX revisited the accusation. “They’re going to say that we’re paid influencers just because we care about this?” he said.
What ALX did not mention was that he was being paid for social media work by Elon Musk’s America PAC, which was itself pushing for passage of the SAVE America Act.
America PAC, which Musk has funded with nearly $300 million since its launch in 2024, has paid ALX $170,000 so far this election cycle for “social media consulting,” according to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by Sludge. The PAC categorized the payments as advertising expenses in its disclosure reports. The payments began in October 2024 and have continued into 2026, including a $20,000 payment on Feb. 12, less than a month before ALX criticized Thune’s remarks.
The filings don’t indicate what ALX, whose real name is Alex Lorusso and who works as executive producer of conservative influencer Benny Johnson’s show, does for America PAC. Sludge asked Lorusso whether the work includes posting, reposting or other activity through his @alx account, or whether his work for the PAC is separate from his personal account, but did not receive a response.
ALX’s personal feed often overlaps with America PAC’s aims, while also promoting Musk and his businesses. Lorusso frequently uses the account to amplify America PAC’s messages and defend Musk’s forays into politics. America PAC, in turn, has featured ALX’s posts on its own website. Musk himself regularly interacts with and amplifies ALX’s posts, sometimes exposing them to audiences many times larger than ALX’s own following.
