MAGA billionaire Elon Musk said Saturday that he will hand out $1 million a day until the election to a randomly selected person who signs a petition by his pro-Trump America PAC.
One of the country’s leading experts in election law said, in doing so, the Tesla CEO and X owner is breaking the law.
“Though maybe some of the other things Musk was doing were of murky legality, this one is clearly illegal,” wrote Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, on his Election Law Blog, calling it “vote buying.”
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Hasen pointed to 52 U.S.C. 10307(c), which says anyone who knowingly or willfully “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.”
He also noted the Department of Justice’s Election Crimes Manual, which states that vote buying or bribing can be anything having monetary value, including “lottery chances” such as the opportunity to win $1 million for signing a petition.
Musk founded America PAC earlier this year so he and his like-minded rich MAGA pals could dump tens of millions of their own wealth into registering and persuading voters on behalf of former president Donald Trump. According to recent filings, Musk has given $75 million to the committee.
America PAC has formed a crucial part of the Trump campaign’s ground game, and is running major canvassing and GOTV initiatives in swing states that could impact the election, including Pennsylvania.
The America PAC petition Musk is trying to get people to sign asks one to agree, “I am pledging my support for the First and Second Amendments.”
Musk claimed, in a tweet, that “The goal of the $1M/day prize is to maximize awareness of our petition to support The Constitution.”
However, signing the petition also requires that one hand over precious personal data, including their name, email address, phone number and home address, which are all crucial to the kind get-out-the-vote efforts America PAC is running.
“One of the challenges we’re having is how do we get people to know about this petition?” Musk said at a rally in Harrisburg, PA. “This news I think is going to really fly.”
Musk then presented the first purse to audience member John Dreher in front of the crowd. “Pennsylvania, everyone needs to get out and vote early,” Dreher said in a video later tweeted by America PAC, which showed him holding up a million dollar giant vanity check from the committee as he uttered those words.
