Musk butts up against Wisconsin state law with (now deleted) $1 million check giveaway

[highplainsdem]

Source: Politico

Elon Musk will visit Wisconsin on Sunday ahead of the state’s high-profile Supreme Court election.

Musk initially announced the plan in a post shortly after midnight on Friday, promising a $1 million giveaway to two attendees who had voted. That post was deleted after legal experts raised concerns it would violate state law. Musk clarified on Friday afternoon that the giveaways would be limited to people who signed his super PAC’s petition.

-snip-

Legal experts immediately raised concerns that offering the Sunday giveaway for only those who have already voted could violate Wisconsin’s election bribery law, which makes it a crime to offer “anything of value” to “induce” potential voters to vote or not vote in an election. Early voting is underway in Wisconsin and runs through Sunday.

“I’m actually surprised that Musk is being so explicit about tying eligibility for this million dollar payout to having voted in the election,” said Brendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer and deputy executive director of the watchdog organization Documented, about Musk’s earlier post. “His tweet makes it very clear that you can only enter this event, and you can only be eligible for the million dollar payout, if you voted, and it’s hard to read that as anything other than providing a thing of value to induce a person to vote, or to reward them for having voted.”

-snip-

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/28/elon-musk-wisconsin-supreme-court-giveaway-00257082

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Earlier thread in GD about MeidasTouch messages on this:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220185418

[et tu]

1. more cheese please

love wisconsin~

[AmericaUnderSiege]

2. The old robber barons tried to cleanse their souls with charitable foundations and universities.

Some of them have done a lot of good over the generations. But what's this guy doing? The hard opposite.

Something is basically wrong with this guy, possibly on a medical level. He should maybe ask about an MRI. There could be something going on.

[KPN]

3. Hope they prosecute him. Look

if i posted a statement that I was going to shoot someone, and then deleted it later because someone told me, “oh, you can’t do that unless you want to get prosecuted for a civil threat”, would a State then decide it was okay because I had deleted it and, so, not prosecute me? Of course not.

We shall see what the difference is — if there is one — between an average citizen and a billionaire on this one.

[dobleremolque]

4. Arrest his ass when he comes to Wisconsin and charge him with the violation! n/t

[Alice B.]

6. Just daydreaming about this very thing. A special welcoming committee waiting for him on the tarmac.

[cbabe]

5. Wisconsin ag response

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220185373

[highplainsdem]

7. LBN thread about a different news story on AG Kaul:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143428447

[SSJVegeta]

8. Hes giving it to them for voting and the post is clear about that.

Intention is all that matters in these cases and a twitter post is as best as you can probably come to proving intention.

[twodogsbarking]

9. Don't worry. If you don't vote, Elon will vote for you, and even if you did vote, he may have already voted for you.

[paleotn]

10. Why hasn't someone "expired" him yet? Why?