Elon Musk’s $1 million giveaway has legal scholars asking questions
Elon Musk is giving $1 million away to a different Pennsylvania voter every day. It may not be legal.
Elon Musk’s latest gambit to help elect former President Donald Trump may be illegal, some election law experts say.
The billionaire businessman announced at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Saturday that he would award $1 million every day through his “America PAC” to a swing state voter who signs the super PAC’s petition affirming support for freedom of speech and the right to bear arms.
It’s just the latest turn in Musk’s growing involvement in the presidential race. The billionaire businessman has invested nearly $75 million into electing Trump and other Republicans, arguing that American democracy depends on the former president’s reelection.
Every day, from now through Nov 5, @America PAC will be giving away $1M to someone in swing states who signed our petition to support free speech & the right to bear arms!
We want to make sure that everyone in swing states hears about this and I suspect this will ensure they do.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2024
In this instance, the problem may be that giveaway participants are required to be registered voters. According to the America PAC website, the giveaway program is “exclusively open to registered voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina.
It is illegal under federal law to pay people to register to vote, and the Department of Justice’s Election Crimes Manual also lists “lottery chances” in exchange for voting or registering to vote as a form of bribery. Violations of the law are punishable by fines of up to $10,000 or imprisonment of up to five years.
If Musk ran afoul of the law, it would fall to the Justice Department to enforce it. Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School, said it would be surprising to see such an action so close to Election Day.
“Just as it is a pretty aggressive move on his part to do this, it would also be an aggressive move by the Department of Justice to do this,” Briffault, who studies campaign finance law, told B-17.
Briffault said Musk’s gambit may violate “the spirit of the law, but not the letter” of the law. “If this was just set up as ‘I’ll pay you to register to vote,’ that would be illegal,” he said.
But there’s ambiguity, Briffault said, because most of the participants have likely been on the voting rolls long before Musk even conceived of the giveaway. Briffault added that though Musk’s “clear intent was to incentivize” pro-Trump voters to register to vote, he “might be able to get away with” saying he’s not trying to do so.
Other election law experts also said that Musk is either barely toeing the line or has outright broken the law.
“It is illegal to give out money on the condition that recipients register as voters,” Adav Noti, the executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, said in a statement to B-17. “As the terms of this ‘contest’ to win $1 million require the recipient to be a registered voter in one of seven swing states (or to register if they have not already), the offer violates federal law and is subject to civil or criminal enforcement by the Department of Justice.”
Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote on his blog that the giveaway constitutes “clearly illegal vote buying.” Hasen told B-17 that the lottery could set “a very bad precedent,” so he hopes the DOJ “would consider doing something.”
“If Musk can do this, I think we will see many more payments and schemes like this in the future, upping the ante and changing the nature of our elections into ones where people focus on personal financial incentives rather than their best determination of whether and how to vote,” Hasen said.
Matthew Alvarez, a partner at Rutan and Tucker, a law firm specializing in election law matters, told B-17
that, while the payments may not be entirely legal, it’s unlikely Musk will face criminal penalties for his actions.
Alvarez added that Musk could be looking to pick a fight with the DOJ because the “optics” could benefit Musk and the Trump campaign.
“The DOJ going after someone for encouraging political participation may very well be a fight that someone like Elon Musk wants,” Alvarez said. “You know, ‘Look at them coming after us. We’re just trying to help people vote. We’re just trying to get people registered,’ right? That’s a narrative there that at least sounds good in general.”
A spokesman for Musk’s America PAC declined to comment.
Democrats have met Musk’s unusual gambit with a range of responses. Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania said on Sunday that the billionaire businessman’s spending raises “serious questions” and that it’s “something that law enforcement could take a look at.”
Representatives for Shapiro did not respond to a request for comment from B-17.
Meanwhile, Gov. Tim Walz said in an appearance on “The View” on Monday that he’d “let the lawyers decide” if what Musk is doing is legal, adding that the giveaways are what happens “when you have no economic plan that’s going to benefit the middle class.”
