Elon Musk’s daily million-dollar voter giveaway survived a legal challenge by Philadelphia’s district attorney in advance of Tuesday’s US presidential election as a judge in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania declined to block it.
Pennsylvania judge Angelo Foglietta on Monday rejected a request to halt the contest by the DA, who called it an illegal lottery. The ruling, which didn’t include any reasoning, came shortly after a hearing where Musk’s lawyer said that the contest winners weren’t picked at random.
Musk’s pro-Donald Trump America PAC has been giving away $1 million every day until election day on Tuesday to people who signed a petition calling for free speech and the right to bear arms. The winner must be a registered voter in a swing state. The contest doesn’t specify which candidate voters should cast their ballots for.
Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner sued Musk and the PAC last week, asking a state court to stop Musk from engaging in an “unlawful lottery”, which lulls “Philadelphia citizens to give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win $1 million”.
Earlier on Monday, Musk’s lawyer, Chris Gober, pushed back against the suit by telling Foglietta that the contest wasn’t a lottery at all because the winners weren’t chosen “by chance”. He said the winners were selected based on their “suitability” to be a public spokesperson for Musk’s political action committee, often based on their personal stories.
Calls to Musk’s lawyers and Krasner’s office seeking comment weren’t immediately returned. The judge will release his full opinion later.
Chris Young, the PAC’s treasurer, said at the hearing on Monday that he was surprised to hear Musk say at a rally last month that the recipients would be chosen at random.
Young said each of the recipients of the $1 million payments are required to sign employment agreements for the PAC. He said they earn the money through that work and are selected based on how many people they referred and other criteria such as their alignment with the programme’s values.
“Anyone who participated in the programme knew exactly” what was expected of them, Young said. “These individuals are being put through the wringer.”
Krasner testified Monday that the contest is nothing more than a “grift”. The Democratic politician denied that the suit was politically motivated.
“I have brought actions against Democrats in the past,” Krasner said, adding that he drove a Tesla. “I would have brought an action against Taylor Swift if she did this.”
Meanwhile, the influential podcast host Joe Rogan has endorsed Trump for president, writing on social media that his choice had been influenced by “the great and powerful Elon Musk”.
Musk “makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way”, Rogan wrote on X. “For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump.”
Rogan shared his endorsement along with a link to a nearly three-hour-long interview with Musk, posted on Monday.
Rogan (57), described recently by Bloomberg as “widely accepted as the most popular podcaster on Earth”, has an overwhelmingly male audience. He recently interviewed Trump on the show, and, as recently as last week, was negotiating for a sit-down with the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Trump’s interview on Rogan’s show 10 days ago currently has 45m views on YouTube, while JD Vance’s interview has 14m views. – Bloomberg, additional reporting the Guardian