After several days of debates about its legality, Elon Musk and his super political action committee America PAC are being sued for their million dollar swing state lottery.
The lottery seems to be Elon Musk’s newest attempt to use his money to try to influence the 2024 election.
Philadelphia’s district attorney Larry Krasner filed the suit on October 28th, alleging that Musk and America PAC are running “an illegal lottery scheme”. The lottery, which has been running for a few weeks, was designed by Musk to use his immense wealth to advocate for Donald Trump’s campaign. The lottery would pick a winner from 2024 election swing states (mainly Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan) who signed Musk’s petition supporting free speech and the Second Amendment.
This could be viewed as buying votes, as the lottery provides a monetary award for registering to vote and signing a petition, which is illegal under 52 U.S.C. 10307(c), which states whomever “pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.” Let alone the fact that when the lottery was announced, Musk stated that two winners had already been picked because they were registered swing state Republicans.
Musk has not shied away from involving himself in partisan politics in recent years years. In 2022, Musk purchased social media giant Twitter in order to “restore free speech” to the website and unban controversial commentators and politicians such as Donald Trump (who was banned after his comments on January 6th), Jordan Peterson, and Andrew Tate, as well as other members of far-right and neo-Nazi groups such as the Patriot Front and the Proud Boys.
He has also been an outspoken supporter of Donald Trump’s campaign, as he has appeared at a Trump rally in Butler, PA, and has supported Trump’s actions and condemned Biden and Harris’ actions on X. Trump has been accepting of Musk’s support, so much so that many within the former president’s circle believe Elon could be in the running for a high ranking position in a hypothetical second Trump administration, including even a cabinet seat.
The DOJ had previously warned Musk about the ramifications if he would be sued for an illegal lottery, some believe that the efforts by the Department of Justice might be in vain since the election is a week away and the penalty is minimal.
As of right now, a judge has scheduled the hearing for the lottery for Friday, November 1st. America PAC and Musk have not issued statements about the suit.
