The mystery money behind a propaganda machine

Florida in Five: Five stories to read from the past week in Florida politics.

Source: Governor’s Press Office

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Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.

The closest thing Florida has ever had to state media was an online outlet called, “The Florida Standard.”

Launched in mid-2022, the publication popped onto the scene by scoring a lengthy sit-down with Gov. Ron DeSantis — which, hard as it is to believe now, was seen as quite the “get” at the time. (This was, remember, before the idea of Ron DeSantis the presidential candidate had run into the reality of Ron DeSantis the presidential candidate.)

The Florida Standard promised fearless journalism and fierce independence. “The media landscape of today is nothing more than the corrupt propaganda of the ruling class,” Will Witt, a conservative podcaster and social-media personality picked to be the public face of the site, wrote in an introductory column headlined, “Welcome to the Florida Standard.”

“We at The Florida Standard are here to change that,” Witt wrote. “Whether it’s in our daily email updates, our breaking news texts, or anything else we do, our commitment will never be to a political party or hidden agendas.”

It was obviously bullshit at the time. If the site’s endlessly sycophantic stories about DeSantis weren’t enough to prove it, the governor and his team were soon caught orchestrating coverage from behind the scenes.

In one example — documented through public records obtained by Seeking Rents — the governor’s taxpayer-funded communications director wrote a public-records request looking for dirt on one of DeSantis’ political enemies. She gave it to a “reporter” at the Florida Standard who immediately submitted the request, verbatim, in his own name, right down to repeating a typo.

And when the Standard posted a subsequent story, the DeSantis press aide turned around and sent it to other journalists as if it were a piece of independent reporting.

But it turns out that Ron DeSantis and his team weren’t just directing the Florida Standard. They were funding the site, too.

A recently filed tax return shows that the Florida Standard was paid $925,000 in 2023 by an organization called “Building America’s Future,” a dark-money nonprofit set up by Ron DeSantis’ top political advisors at the time.

The organization was, for instance, co-founded in 2020 by a Republican strategist named Generra Peck, who also served as the group’s initial president until late 2021 — about the time that DeSantis hired her to manage his 2022 re-election campaign. Peck would go on to serve as the first campaign manager of DeSantis’ subsequent presidential campaign, which the Florida governor launched in May 2023.

The payment — for unspecified “project management” — was first unearthed by Matt Dixon of NBC News.

Dixon is the plugged-in politics reporter and Florida Capitol veteran who just published another intriguing piece in which he caught DeSantis’ political team backchanneling with a new entrant to the 2026 governor’s race — a guy who refers to U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, the Donald Trump-endorsed frontrunner in the Republican primary who is also Black, as “DEI Donalds.”

It’s not clear why the Florida Standard — a site that assured its readers it was free of “hidden agendas” — would take nearly $1 million from a dark-money operation connected to the same governor and presidential candidate that the site was regularly writing about as an allegedly independent news organization.

Lol just kidding. It’s perfectly clear.

It’s genuinely not clear, though, where this money originally came from. That’s because Building America’s Future is a 501(c)4 nonprofit, which means it does not have to disclose its own donors.

But we do know one person who put a bunch of money into Building Amercia’s Future: Elon Musk.

The richest person on the planet — with a net worth of nearly $500 billion and a portfolio of companies that include SpaceX, Tesla, and the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter — has given millions of dollars to Building America’s Future, according to reporting by Reuters. Musk’s donations to the group began in 2022.

Musk was, at the time, investing heavily in Ron DeSantis — back before “DeFuture” had melted into “Pudding Fingers.” Reporting by the Wall Street Journal revealed that Musk also put $10 million into yet another dark-money nonprofit that turned around and gave the money to a Super PAC set up to support DeSantis presidential bid.

Musk’s companies were also simultaneously winning policy favors from DeSantis and Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature. Like when the governor signed legislation that SpaceX lobbied for giving private spaceflight companies expanded protection from lawsuits in the event of an explosion. Or when DeSantis signed another bill to prevent Floridians from buying electric cars directly from automakers like Honda or Ford — but with a special carveout sought by lobbyists for Tesla.

That said, Musk isn’t the only known donor to Building America’s Future, which raised and spent more than $20 million in 2023.

Tax records show that Purple Action — a dark-money nonprofit set up by David Sacks, a venture capitalist and friend of Elon Musk — gave $500,000 that year. The American Exploration & Production Council, which represents the oil- and gas-drilling industry, gave another $50,000.

Wherever the money ultimately came from, it wasn’t enough. The Florida Standard abruptly shut down in early 2024, shortly after DeSantis ended his presidential campaign.

Folks seem to have landed on their feet, though. Will Witt, the Florida Standard’s “editor-in-chief,” is now the social media director at New College of Florida, the small public university in Sarasota that Ron DeSantis has turned into a Works Progress Administration for Republican insiders.

*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.

The low-wage, high-cost state

Orlando now ranks 49th out of 50 in wages (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

See also: Miami millennials earned $3,000 less at age 27 than Gen X did, data shows. Why? (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: Why Tampa Bay electric bills were so high in 2025 (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

See also: Florida consumer advocate slams FPL’s ‘unconscionable’ rate hike deal (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

See also: It’s harder to get home insurance. That’s changing communities across the U.S. (NPR)

Indoctrination, not education

Florida first in nation to adopt conservative educational plan from Heritage Foundation (Tallahassee Democrat) ($)

See also: Florida revives McCarthyism, anti-communism with classroom guidelines (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

See also: Florida OKs ‘evils of communism’ standards, signs Heritage Foundation pledge (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

See also: What to know about how Florida will teach McCarthyism and the Cold War (Associated Press)

See also: Florida board approves Heritage Foundation’s vision for schools (Central Florida Public Media)

All this, to please a billionaire

Charter school operators seek to share more than 100 campuses in Florida counties (South Florida Sun-Sentinel) ($)

See also: Two charter networks target 27 Polk County schools for shared space as early as 2026 (Lakeland Ledger) ($)

See also: Orange received 53 ‘Schools of Hope’ notices this week. Very few are valid. (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

See also: More Tampa Bay schools get requests to host Schools of Hope charters (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

See also: Two charters vie for same Sarasota campuses under ‘Schools of Hope’ (Suncoast Searchlight)

See also: How a controversial Florida law is shaping Manatee’s plans for new high school (Bradenton Herald) ($)

See also: Hillsborough trip to sway lawmakers to rethink Schools of Hope yields little (WUSF)

Shot and chaser

The rise of ‘don’t say climate’ politics in Florida and beyond (Grist)

See also: ‘Street is lake, urgent!’ Herald mapping reveals flooding blind spots (Miami Herald) ($)

The order came from the top

Scrapped Florida state parks plans came ‘directly’ from DeSantis’ office, suit says (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

Powerful men and a girl who needed braces

In Matt Gaetz Scandal, Circumstances Left Teen Vulnerable to Exploitation (New York Times) ($)

Perspectives

Florida is suing Planned Parenthood for racketeering. It’s part of a bigger plan (MSNBC)

The Unregulated Pregnancy Clinic Industry and Ectopic Pregnancy (Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch)

Florida’s historic places, community heritage threatened by SB 180 (Florida Times-Union) ($)

ALEC Pushes Power Grid “Stability” Bills to Favor Fossil Fuels Over Renewables (Center for Media and Democracy)

Orlando’s Last Republican Commissioner Loses Re-Election (The MCIMAPS Report)

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Elon Musk’s estimated net worth.