People who were paid to tell America who Mike Bloomberg really is are finding out who Mike Bloomberg really is.
On Friday, Bloomberg announced plans to scrap the independent organization being set up in the ruins of his failed presidential campaign and instead is donating the resources to the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Bloomberg, according to NBC News, held an all-staff conference call Friday morning telling employees that plans for the new operation constructed to bolster former Vice President Joe Biden would be discarded because of “how much the world has changed since Super Tuesday.” Bloomberg will now be transferring $18 million from his self-funded political committee to the Democratic Party.
The New York billionaire’s decision will lay off the rest of his failed campaign’s staff, breaking promises made for guaranteed employment through the November election, regardless of whether Bloomberg would end up the nominee.
According to hiring materials obtained by Politico, staff were told that “regardless of what happened, field organizers could expect to have a job with ‘Team Bloomberg’ through November, though it didn’t promise interviewees where they would be based. It outlined that organizers would be paid $6,000 a month, plus a $5,000 relocation stipend and full health, dental and vision benefits.”
Last month, Bloomberg had already broken that commitment to hundreds of employees who learned they would be receiving their final paychecks at the end of March. As a consolation, employees were told they could still keep their phones and laptops valued between $1,400 and $1,700, which they would still be required to pay taxes on. That’s some prize for unemployment to strike just as the global economy shuts down over the Wuhan virus.
Staff was initially asked to apply for jobs in any one of the six swing states that the new operation would be working to elect Biden, including Arizona, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin. Laid off employees were also asked if they wanted a referral to another campaign instead, which at that point meant Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders or Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren who made her exit shortly after Bloomberg’s.
“As we’ve said over the course of the campaign, this election will come down to six battleground states,” the Bloomberg campaign said in a statement in February. “It is imperative that we invest there with staff and infrastructure. Staff who were working in non-battleground states and would like to learn about future opportunities in the battleground states are being asked to let us know so we can consider them for jobs there.”
After Friday’s announcement however, it’s clear those employees were duped again.
Bloomberg, who boasts a Forbes estimated net-worth of $50.1 billion self-funded a massive late-entrance campaign hiring more than 2,000 employees and paying them double what rival campaigns were paying staffers. The New York businessmen ended up spending more than half a billion dollars on the operation running on a strategy to skip the early contest states and move right into the nationwide contests on Super Tuesday held earlier this month. After more than $500 million gone however, Bloomberg only landed 64 delegates in the race and dropped out a day later to endorse Biden who reclaimed his frontrunner status.
In the absence of any major game-changing events, Biden is slated to become the nominee, likely capturing eight out of the last nine states to vote. The only state to bless Sanders with a first-place win was North Dakota, which is tied with Wyoming for the smallest pot of delegates in the entire primary. Sanders also only won two more of North Dakota’s 14 delegates than Biden, carrying 8 to Biden’s 6.
An earlier version of this article stated that Bloomberg had spent more than $500,000 on his campaign for 64 delegates. Bloomberg spent more than $500 million.
