Will Elon Musk's million-dollar election scheme pay off?
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Elon Musk has never met a problem he couldn't throw a fortune at. With more money to his name than anyone else in the history of the human race, the Tesla CEO has made little secret of his plans to put that historic wealth in the service of reelecting Donald Trump — particularly in the perennial battleground state of Pennsylvania, where Musk appeared alongside the former president at a recent rally, urging the MAGA faithful to "just be a pest" about voter registration for their friends and family.
Now, with just weeks to go before polls close on the 2024 presidential election, Musk is once again betting big that his money will be a decisive factor in an election cycle that's already blown past fundraising records on both sides of the aisle. Last weekend, Musk announced he would award $1 million every day to a new, randomly chosen registered Pennsylvania voter who signs a conservative-skewing petition created by his pro-Trump America PAC. "I think this is kind of fun," Musk said on Saturday, as he introduced a man identified as John Dreher, his first newly-minted millionaire. "It seems like a good use of money basically."
While Musk is of course free to give his money to whomever he'd like, his plan to entice and reward signatories of his not-so-subtly pro-Trump enterprise by bumping them to a higher tax bracket is slightly more complicated — and potentially illegal.
What did the commentators say?
While Musk has obviously succeeded at pulling eyeballs to his sweepstakes, the fact that the first two recipients of his largesse were "Republican voters who had participated in recent non-presidential elections and already cast their ballots by mail this year" raises the question of whether the scheme is "activating a new segment of voters — incentivizing people to register or cast ballots — or just tapping into an existing pool of Musk and Trump fans," Politico said. Musk's skill as a "pitchman able to draw attention" is without question, but "what he offers in oversized cardboard checks for $1 million doesn't have much value," said Chris Brennan at USA Today.
Crucially, because Musk's sweepstakes are technically nonpartisan, Democrats can also "sign this petition and get a shot at the $1m and then vote for Kamala Harris," Sun Microsystems co-founder and fellow tech billionaire Vinod Khosla said on X. Democrat entrants would not only "gum up Musk's operation" by "muddying his database with an unknown number of Democrats," said Fortune, but they could ultimately "drain resources that could have otherwise gone to mobilizing voters for Donald Trump by wasting it on the opposing side."
Risk of Democratic gamification aside, Musk's giveaway faces a more immediate, acute threat as well: the question of legality. The sweepstakes operates in a "legal gray zone that appears to be open to interpretation," said Fox News. While paying someone to vote or register to vote is illegal, offering benefits to help people vote is "legal and common," The New York Times said, citing rides to polling places, or workplaces affording employees paid time off to vote as examples of allowed behavior. Because Musk is "not directly paying for voter registration — but rather for a petition signature that happens to be open only to registered voters," the billionaire's supporters argue that the giveaway is ultimately within the bounds of federal election law. Legal technicalities notwithstanding, the sweepstakes has already earned the suspicion of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D). Musk's giveaway is "something that law enforcement could take a look at," Shapiro said last week on NBC's "Meet the Press."
What next?
If he is violating the applicable election law statute, Musk could face up to five years in prison, and $10,000 in fines, although "I don't think it would be likely that he would suffer such a serious fine," UCLA election law professor Richard Hasen said to NPR. However, if Musk was "warned that this is illegal activity and continued to do it, I think that would create a different kind of situation."
To that end, a group of former Justice Department officials and Republican lawmakers have petitioned Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate Musk's giveaway, arguing in a letter obtained by The Washington Post that the sweepstakes is in clear violation of election law. "We are aware of nothing like this in modern political history," the group said. Although law enforcement is "appropriately reluctant to take action shortly before elections that could affect how people vote," the letter said, "serious questions arising under laws that directly regulate the voting process must be an exception."