Philadelphia DA doubts Musk’s $1M-a-day giveaway ‘winners’ got anything besides ‘big cardboard checks’

Elon Musk.

A lawyer for Philadelphia’s district attorney questioned on Monday if Elon Musk’s $1 million-a-day “lottery” is actually paying out.

For all the public knows, they’ve only received “big cardboard checks” in the 17 days since Musk announced the first award, the lawyer, John S. Summers, said in a court hearing in Philadelphia’s City Hall.

Musk is the “heartbeat” of the giveaway, Summers told Judge Angelo Foglietta of Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas, in asking that the “lottery” be immediately shut down in Pennsylvania as a “public nuisance.”

“He was the one who presented the checks, albeit large cardboard checks,” Gober said of Musk. “We don’t really know if there are any real checks.”

The city’s Democratic district attorney, Larry Krasner, calls Musk’s America PAC-funded giveaway, which is available only to registered swing-state voters, an illegal and unregulated lottery.

Lawyers for Musk countered in court on Monday that the million-dollar awards are not winnings from a lottery. Instead, Musk’s lawyers argued, recipients are being compensated as spokespeople for the PAC.

The hearing spilled over past the lunch break. The judge did not say when he would decide on the emergency injunction or whether such an injunction would stop the giveaway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or elsewhere.

“There is no prize,” Chris Gober, an attorney for Musk and the PAC, told the judge.

“We ask people to sign the petition and to ask others to sign the petition” in support of the First and Second Amendments, Gober said.

“There are payments for that,” Gober told the judge, referring to Musk’s promise that petition signers will get either $47 or $100 for each pledge they sign and succeed in getting others to sign.

“We then determine which individuals would serve as a spokesperson for us,” Gober said, based on their “suitability” and “background.”

Musk’s lawyers did not address on Monday whether anyone promised a $1 million check has actually received $1 million. The X account for America PAC shows more than a dozen posts from people posing with hand-written blown-up checks.

The PAC did not immediately return a request for comment about whether the $1 million wins were paid out.

But checks are either mailed or in the mail for 18,000 people in Philadelphia County who have been promised either $47 or $100 for signing the PAC petition, Gober said in court, including nearly 8,000 payments that “are supposed to be mailed tomorrow.”

PAC expenditures for the petition program don’t have to be publicly recorded until December 8, Gober added.

Krasner himself took the stand as a witness in his own lawsuit, questioned by Summers.

During more than an hour of testimony, Krasner said he owns a Tesla and doesn’t let being a Democrat influence his actions as a district attorney.

“I’m an old car mechanic. I like a Tesla,” he added to some laughter in the courtroom, adding he’s had the car since 2016.

“I have brought actions against Democrats in the past,” Krasner said. “I would have brought an action against Taylor Swift if she had done this.”

Musk did not attend the hearing, but Krasner’s legal team played videos of the Tesla and SpaceX founder announcing the giveaway and displayed X posts in which he praised it. Musk repeatedly refers to people being “awarded” the $1 million windfall randomly.

“I’ve got 37 years in the courts, and “it’s one of the most disingenuous things I’ve ever heard,” Krasner said from the witness stand of Musk’s characterization of the windfalls as spokesperson consultancy fees.

Krasner’s bid for an emergency injunction halting the giveaway had been delayed in the past week as it bounced from state court to federal court and back again.

Musk unsuccessfully sought to have the case heard by a federal judge, who instead agreed with Krasner and, on Thursday, remanded it to state court.

Musk, who is the world’s richest man, was not present as required when the parties last met in court on Thursday morning, an absence his lawyer blamed at the time on the last-minute setting of that court date.

Krasner requested heightened security for these court hearings.

Lawyers for the DA said that he has been receiving “an avalanche of posts from Musk’s followers” on X, where the billionaire has 202.7 million followers, according to a request for heightened security filed Wednesday.

Many of Musk’s followers “made antisemitic attacks on Krasner,” the filing said.

One X user posted Krasner’s family’s home address and urged those who disagree with the lawsuit to “mask up” and attend the hearing, the filing said.