Judge declines to block Musk’s $1 million voter giveaways
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The America PAC giveaways can move forward, with less than 24 hours until polls open.
By Lauren Feiner, a senior policy reporter at The Verge, covering the intersection of Silicon Valley and Capitol Hill. She spent 5 years covering tech policy at CNBC, writing about antitrust, privacy, and content moderation reform.
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Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images
Elon Musk’s America PAC can move forward with its $1 million giveaways to voters after a Philadelphia judge declined an emergency petition from District Attorney Larry Krasner to block them.
During a hearing earlier on Monday, a representative for the political action committee said prize winners are not randomly selected and are actually chosen to be paid spokespeople for the PAC, which supports former President Donald Trump, The Associated Press reported. Musk previously advertised the selection as random, but the fine print of the petition that applicants need to sign to enter the giveaway doesn’t mention it.
Krasner accused the PAC of running an illegal lottery and deceptively marketing the prize selections as random, even though “multiple winners that have been selected are individuals who have shown up at Trump rallies in Pennsylvania.” While the PAC’s admission at the hearing seemed to confirm that suspicion, it also undermined the idea that the giveaway is a lottery at all.
The PAC lists two additional giveaways on its site to take place on Monday and Tuesday. Those prizes are slated to go to voters in Arizona and Michigan, respectively.
It’s not yet clear what Judge Angelo Foglietta’s reasoning was behind denying the emergency injunction, but he said in a court filing that his findings would be forthcoming.
