https://www.wired.com/story/you-cant-buy-friends-bloomberg-rent-yours/

Onstage during last night’s primary debate in Nevada, Mike Bloomberg found himself with no friends. But he’s got a plan to make some new ones in California.

In advance of the state’s pivotal primary on March 3, the Mike Bloomberg presidential campaign is hiring more than 500 “deputy field organizers” in the state, at a $2,500 monthly salary for part-time work. One of their key responsibilities is to push out pro-Bloomberg messages to their contacts via text message and social media. As The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, the effort could cost the campaign millions of dollars, and it might expand nationally. It’s only the latest example of Bloomberg (net worth: $64 billion) deploying his functionally limitless wealth in ways that seem to warp the very physics of digital political communication. Despite not entering the race until December, he has already spent nearly as much on Google and Facebook ads as the rest of the Democratic field combined, according to data tracked by Bully Pulpit Interactive. And he has made waves by paying some of the biggest influencers on Instagram to put out an onslaught of Bloombergian memes.