Judge Says Musk PAC Giveaway Can Continue

UPDATE Nov 4, 2024 4:51 PM CST

A Pennsylvania judge ruled Monday that the $1 million-a-day giveaway by Elon Musk's pro-Trump America PAC can continue until Election Day. Judge Angelo Foglietta issued the ruling, without explaining his reasoning, after Musk's lawyers said winners of what had been advertised as a lottery-style giveaway were paid spokespeople who had not been selected by chance, the AP reports. Philadelphia DA Lawrence Krasner argued that the giveaway was an illegal lottery designed to collect voter information and influence the election. "This has been a grift from the beginning," he said, per the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Nov 4, 2024 12:11 PM CST

On Monday morning, proceedings played out in a Philadelphia courtroom over a suit against the $1 million-a-day giveaway by Elon Musk's pro-Trump America PAC. The complaint from Philly DA Lawrence Krasner alleges that the sweepstakes is an "illegal lottery" designed to collect voter information, and that it doesn't appear the winners have been randomly chosen, as Musk has said, per Reuters. Musk's attorney appeared to admit as much in the latter part during the hearing. "The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance," Chris Gober said, per the AP. "We know exactly who will be announced as the $1 million recipient today and tomorrow."

He added, per Reuters: "There is no prize to be won; instead, recipients must fulfill contractual obligations to serve as a spokesperson for the PAC." Gober also said that the PAC, which has already bestowed 18 prizes, would award Monday's and Tuesday's prizes to winners in the swing states of Arizona and Michigan. John Summers, an attorney for Krasner, immediately reacted to Gober's remarks. "We just heard this guy say, 'My boss, my client, called this random,'" Summers said. "'We promised people that they were going to participate in a random process, but it's a process where we preselect people.'"

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On Friday, an NBC News report on the giveaway noted that those who've won $1 million so far from the PAC "have a few things in common": namely, that they're all registered voters living in battleground states, and supposedly all signers of Musk's petition promoting free speech and the Second Amendment. Plus, "almost all of them are registered Republicans or appear to be Republican-leaning," the news outlet notes. Last month, Musk wrote in an X post: "You can be from any or no political party and you don't even have to vote." The US Justice Department had already issued a warning over the giveaway, but no action has been taken on that end. Krasner, meanwhile, says that criminal charges could also be on the table. (More Elon Musk stories.)