Elon Musk’s $1 million lottery to attract Trump voters sparks controversy in US

John Dreher attended an Elon Musk rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on Saturday and went home with $1 million after the business tycoon announced his name from the stage with a giant check in his hand. The richest man in the world, a major contributor to Donald Trump’s campaign, has decided to raffle off a million dollars every day until Election Day among individuals who sign a petition in defense of the rights to free speech and to bear arms. But in order to be able to sign the petition, one must be a registered voter in Pennsylvania. This has sparked controversy because the lottery straddles the line of legality, since election laws prohibit not only buying votes, but also paying people to register to vote.

Dreher was jumping for joy as he went to collect his check. As the first winner, it was totally unexpected because Musk had not even announced the existence of the sweepstake until that night. In order to attend the billionaire’s most recent rallies — where talk of rockets to Mars and conspiracy theories about immigrants abound — one must sign a declaration in favor of the First and Second Amendments. According to the magnate, who claims that Google hides the truth and that traditional media outlets are puppets controlled by powers in the shadows, these rights are in grave danger under the Democrats.

To sign the petition, in turn, you have to be a registered voter. Musk started by offering $47 (the next president will be the 47th) to anyone who could convince a new registered voter to sign the petition. He then raised the reward to $100 and, in another step toward the edge of the law, decided to pay both the signer and the person submitting it.

But it was on Saturday at the rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s capital, that alarm bells finally went off with the million-dollar check. Musk, through his organization America PAC, to which he had donated $75 million up to September to support Trump’s campaign, will spend $18 million on these sweepstakes.

Federal law prohibits paying people to vote or to register. It is a crime punishable by a fine of up to $10,000 and up to five years in prison. A Justice Department election crimes manual says that “the bribe may be anything having monetary value, including cash, liquor, lottery chances, and welfare benefits such as food stamps.”

Musk is playing it close, as his million-dollar giveaway is only for people who sign the petition, but at the same time requires that they already be registered voters in order to sign it. In doing so, he seems to be taking advantage of a legal loophole, although there are divided opinions on the matter.

Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, a former state attorney general, expressed “deep concern” about this on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians. That is deeply concerning,” he said.

Election experts contacted by the Associated Press also expressed doubts. Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer, said Musk’s latest variation on the giveaway approaches a legal boundary. “There would be few doubts about the legality if every Pennsylvania-based petition signer were eligible, but conditioning the payments on registration arguably violates the law,” Fischer said.

Rick Hasen, a political science professor at UCLA School of Law, sees this as illegal. “If all he was doing was paying people to sign the petition, that might be a waste of money. But there’s nothing illegal about it,” he said. “The problem is that the only people eligible to participate in this giveaway are the people who are registered to vote. And that makes it illegal.”

Michael Kang, a professor of election law at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, argues that the context of the prize so close to Election Day makes it harder to argue that the effort is nothing more than an incentive to get people to register to vote. “It’s not quite the same as paying someone to vote, but you’re getting close enough that we worry about its legality,” he explains.

Conflicts of interest

In Musk’s case, his involvement in the campaign is complicated by potential conflicts of interest. If Trump wins the election, he has promised to put him in charge of a commission charged with drastically cutting government agencies. “We need the Department of Government Efficiency,” he said, highlighting the acronym DOGE, a nod to Dogecoin, the bitcoin-derived cryptocurrency that uses a dog as a mascot and which he somewhat sponsors.

The problem is that Musk would be tasked with cutting the very regulatory bodies that oversee the activity of both his electric car company, Tesla, and his space company, SpaceX. These agencies, for example, investigate how the self-driving system of his cars has caused accidents (including a fatal collision with a pedestrian) in low visibility conditions such as fog, suspended dust, and backlighting, since they do not have radar or laser sensors. They also review SpaceX launches for their potential safety and environmental impact. In addition, he has had problems with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the purchase of Twitter and for his management of Tesla, and with labor authorities also at Tesla, among many other investigations, fines and conflicts, some of which are being settled in court. At the same time, despite criticizing the excessive weight of the administration, he has contracts worth billions of dollars with government agencies.

Musk does not conceal his desire to free himself from the “million” shackles that bind the giant Gulliver, as he calls the United States. He complains that because of regulatory obstacles it will not be possible to establish a colony on Mars. He said at one of his recent rallies in Folsom (Pennsylvania), that one day aliens will come and take pity on humans, saying that they had the rockets ready, but not the paperwork. But even if he does not achieve his utopia, if he only manages to cut the powers and resources of those who supervise his activities, then his $75 million (plus what he donated in October) would be a very profitable investment for the richest man in the world, with an estimated fortune of $242 billion.

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