Elon Musk criticised for offering $1mn prizes to voters who sign petition

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The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House

Elon Musk’s pledge to dole out money to registered voters who sign his petition backing free speech and the right to bear arms has garnered scrutiny for potentially violating election rules. 

The billionaire entrepreneur, who has become one of Donald Trump’s biggest corporate backers, awarded a $1mn cheque on Saturday to an audience member at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Musk said it would be the first of daily disbursements of that size to registered voters in swing states who sign his political action committee’s petition.

The cash giveaway comes on the heels of an earlier offer of $100 for Pennsylvania voters who publicly affirmed their support “for the First and Second Amendments”, as well as $47 for voters in other swing states such as Michigan, Arizona and Georgia. 

Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro, who previously served as the state’s attorney-general and is an advocate for vice-president Kamala Harris, said on Sunday that the move was something “law enforcement can take a look at”. 

“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,” he said in an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press. “That is deeply concerning.”

Richard Hasen, a legal scholar who specialises in election law, said the pledge from Musk, the world’s richest man, “violates the core ban on vote buying in US federal elections”.

“Musk is essentially running a $1mn lottery open only to people who register or are registered to vote,” Hasen added.

Federal law stipulates that it is illegal to offer financial incentives to either compel someone to vote or to reward them for doing so. “Anything having monetary value” such as cash or lottery chances are prohibited, according to a manual published by the Department of Justice on election crimes. 

Musk’s pledge comes with just weeks to go before ballot boxes close on November 5. Polls show Trump and Harris are in a dead heat.

“We want to make sure that everyone in swing states hears about this and I suspect this will ensure they do,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X.

Battleground states such as Pennsylvania will be crucial for either candidate to eke out a victory. Democrats are trailing Republicans in terms of registering voters there, giving the former president a slight advantage.

In 2020, Trump lost the state to Joe Biden by just over 80,000 votes.