Jay Collins’ campaign has pulled back a sharp social media attack on Ken Griffin, deleting a Tuesday post that questioned the billionaire’s backing of Byron Donalds and blaming the message on a subcontractor who posted it without approval. The move puts Collins, the DeSantis-appointed Lieutenant Governor who wants to win the top job, in the awkward position of criticizing a major GOP donor and then quickly disavowing the criticism on his own behalf.
The deleted post asked whether Florida should be left “in the hands of families working hard and doing the right things” or of “billionaires feeding their bank accounts even further by hyperscale data centers in your backyard or buying up even more land to develop.” It went on to say Donalds was backed by one of the largest billionaire donations in the race and told readers to “follow the money.” Collins also attached three headlines, including two about Miami real estate purchases and a third about Griffin criticizing the AI positions of Zohran Mamdani and Bernie Sanders.
That is why the post drew attention quickly. Griffin gave $10 million to Donalds’ campaign, and he has long been a prominent Florida donor with political contributions on both sides of the aisle, including to Bill Nelson in 2004. He has also backed Ron DeSantis over the years, making the attack land inside a Republican fight rather than outside one. Collins has lately leaned harder into AI and data centers as campaign themes, which made the wording of the tweet more than a stray online jab.
Spokesperson Jennifer Vickery said the campaign is disavowing the post and described it as the work of a subcontractor “who is trying to help,” while saying it went out without the campaign’s “knowledge or approval.” Senior advisor John Cardillo said Collins did not review and post it himself and that the contractor posted on his behalf without approval from Jay or the campaign team. He added that the situation has been rectified. That explanation leaves the campaign defending both its message and its process at the same time, which is a harder line to hold when the target is a donor with Griffin’s reach.
Gates McGavick responded by saying the campaign is grateful for Griffin’s support and for tens of thousands of unique donors, and that nothing will distract it from beating Democrat David Jolly and keeping Florida the best state in America to start a business and raise a family. For Collins, the larger question is not whether the tweet is gone; it is whether the campaign can keep talking about money, AI and data centers while insisting that a message central to that argument was sent out without anyone inside the operation signing off on it.
