By Leah Cruz
Staff Writer
Elon Musk’s $1 million-a-day voter sweepstake was allowed to continue through Nov. 5 as a Philadelphia judge deemed the contest legal in response to a lawsuit filed by Philadephia’s district attorney, Larry Krasner, the Associated Press reported.
The sweepstake, available only to residents of the seven battleground states of the 2024 presidential election, gave away $1 million to a winner every day until election day. In order to be entered into the sweepstake, contestants had to be registered to vote in one of the seven swing states and sign a petition put forth by Musk’s pro-Trump America political action committee, or PAC, to support the First and Second Amendments.
Musk, who has continually supported Donald Trump, has put forth over $70 million toward his PAC and has spent millions more supporting Trump’s campaign for re-election. The aim of the $1 million sweepstake was to increase voter registration in swing states that were crucial in Trump’s effort to win the presidency.
The exchange of a large sum of money for registering to vote in a swing state and pledging to support Musk’s America PAC raised concerns over the lawfulness of the giveaway in regard to election law, according to CNN. For many experts, the giveaway seemed to be a bribe by Musk to secure votes for Trump.
According to CNN, Krasner filed a lawsuit against Musk in October, arguing that it was illegal because Pennsylvania law requires lotteries to be “operated and administered by the state,” which Musk’s giveaway was not.
Philadelphia Judge Angelo Foglietta permitted the giveaway to continue, concluding that it was not a lottery because it failed to meet the three criteria to make it a lottery under Pennsylvania law, Business Insider reported. Lotteries in Pennsylvania must have a prize, a payment to enter and a randomized selection of winners.
According to Reuters, Musk and his lawyers said that the $1 million given away to winners was not technically a prize, but instead compensation for their outspoken support of America PAC. The director of America PAC, Chris Young, also testified that the winners were chosen out of a group of candidates who had previously worked with the group and were, therefore, not random. Reuters also reported that Young admitted to requiring winners of the sweepstake to sign NDAs.
A lawyer for the Philadelphia district attorney’s office said the giveaway was a complete fraud, calling it "it's one of the greatest scams of the last 50 years."
President Biden did not speak to whether the giveaway was illegal or not, but called it “totally inappropriate.”
Judge Foglietta concluded that “DA Krasner failed to provide any evidence of misuse beyond mere speculation,” the Associated Press reported.
“We respectfully disagree with the judge’s opinion,” Krasner said in a statement on Wednesday.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and owner of X and SpaceX, has most recently been picked by Trump to join his administration and lead a new Department of Government Efficiency.
