Elon Musk has already spent millions on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, but his latest gambit — an offer to give $1 million each to two voters — might run afoul of state law, election experts said.
Musk posted on X early Friday morning that he would “give a talk in Wisconsin” on Sunday night, two days before the April 1 election, limiting attendance to people who had already voted in the race. While there, he said he planned to “personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote.” He has since deleted the post.
The effort is similar to Musk’s previous million-dollar-check handouts, which started last year. Then, his political action committee handed out $1 million a day as part of efforts to increase voter registration in swing states. While the Justice Department warned the PAC that the sweepstakes might run afoul of federal election laws that make it a crime to offer cash or prizes to induce people to register to vote, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ultimately allowed it.
But the Wisconsin effort seems different, some experts suggest, because it’s tied to voting.
“Earlier payments were for registering but this is for voting. A clear violation of the state’s election law,” Barry Burden, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and director of the Elections Research Center, wrote in a post on X.
The Wisconsin provision in question is a statute that covers “election bribery” and states that it is a crime when someone “offers, gives, lends or promises to give or lend, or endeavors to procure, anything of value, or any office or employment or any privilege or immunity to, or for, any elector, or to or for any other person, in order to induce any elector to … Vote or refrain from voting.”
Musk already handed $1 million this week to a Wisconsin resident in a lottery format similar to the ones last fall.
In an article on his Election Law Blog, legal scholar and elections law expert Rick Hasen wrote: “Wisconsin law makes payment for turnout illegal.”
“I haven’t yet researched Wisconsin caselaw applying the provision. But Musk’s activities appear to violate the plain meaning of the statute. He’s offering a chance to win a million dollars, [which] is a thing of value, and it’s only offered to people who have voted,” he wrote. “One might say he’s not inducing people, but instead rewarding them. I don’t think this helps, because the statute likely covers rewarding as well — think of people who decide to vote in order to attend the talk for the lottery chance to win a million dollars.”
In a press release, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s chair, Ben Wikler, said Musk “has committed a blatant felony by offering money for votes in order to help Brad Schimel,” the conservative candidate in the race. “Musk’s illegal election bribery scheme to put Brad Schimel on the Supreme Court is a chainsaw attack on democracy and the rule of law in Wisconsin and our nation.”
“If Schimel does not immediately call on Musk to end this criminal activity, we can only assume he is complicit,” Wikler said. “If Elon Musk sets foot in Wisconsin, he should be placed in handcuffs and held accountable — just like any other criminal. Musk can have his day in court, but he cannot buy the court.”
The campaign spokesman for the race’s liberal candidate, Judge Susan Crawford, referred NOTUS to Wikler’s statement, and said the event on Sunday more broadly was “just a last-minute desperate distraction as voters are turned off by Schimel.”
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Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.