Is Elon Musk Trying to Buy the 2024 Election?
My October 23, 2024 editorial in The Spy Community Media newspapers.
Would America be better off if Elon Musk moved to Mars? I thought that after reading about the Tesla billionaire's creation of a lottery scheme to support Donald Trump. Registered voters in swing states received a chance to win $1 million by committing to support the First and Second Amendments. In Pennsylvania, Musk offered $100 to every registered voter who signed his petition supporting free speech and guns.
I addressed the Musk scheme in my column in Spy Community Media’s newspapers on the Eastern Shore of Maryland this week. In the piece, I speculated that Musk anticipates regulations and rules that have slowed down Musk’s development of a rocket, which he hopes will take humans to Mars to be waived or weakened.
The editorial may be found here and below.
Is Elon Musk Trying to Buy the 2024 Election?
It is regrettable that Maryland is not a swing state. Billionaire Elon Musk has created a lottery to encourage voters to sign a petition that he believes will benefit Trump. The scheme may be illegal, but if Musk is true to his word, some lucky voter in a swing state will get $1 million every day between now and election day. Too bad none of them will be Maryland registered voters.
The Washington Post reported: ”Musk . . . on Saturday announced that daily through Election Day, America PAC, the super PAC Musk created to campaign for Trump, will give away “$1M to someone in swing states who signed our petition to support free speech & the right to bear arms.”
Musk advertised his plan on X, his social media platform, and has already made payments.
The petition reads: “The First and Second Amendments guarantee freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. By signing below, I am pledging my support for the First and Second Amendments.”
In Pennsylvania, in a special offer that ended on Monday, October 21, Musk paid $100 to each Pennsylvania voter who signed the petition and an additional $100 referral fee for persuading another registered Pennsylvania voter to sign.
See the petition and Pennsylvania offer here.
What is going on? Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro thinks the plan stinks. He commented, “Musk obviously has a right to be able to express his views. He has made it very, very clear that he supports Donald Trump. I do not – obviously, we have a difference of opinion. I don’t deny him that right. But when you start flowing this kind of money into politics, I think it raises serious questions that folks may want to take a look at.”
Election law experts note that it is illegal to pay anyone to vote for a particular candidate or to register to vote. Musk’s offer appears to avoid those prohibitions—His payments, made through his Political Action Committee, are to sign a petition expressing support for two Constitutional Amendments, the First and Second, not to vote. It does not appear likely the scheme is illegal.
Musk is known as an advocate for the First Amendment, but why pay voters in swing states money to commit to support them? The answer is that Musk believes these voters will be more likely to vote for Trump.
Musk’s support for Trump seems obvious. Elon Musk wants to go to Mars and is spending billions of his own money (he has more than $265 billion) to build rockets to get there. Unfortunately, the Federal Aviation Administration, environmentalists, and others have slowed down the development of Musk’s Mars rocket, called Starship.
My speculation is that Musk has secured a commitment from Donald Trump to “cut red tape” to expedite Starship and to support other policies favored by Trump, including blocking any attempt to restrict content on X or other social media platforms.
If my speculation is right, Musk’s PAC may be making an illegal contribution to the Trump campaign. Will that happen? I am no election law expert, but the theory sounds murky, at best to me.
More troubling than Musk doling out dollars in the hopes of bolstering the Trump vote in swing states is Trump’s promise to give him a position in his administration. Musk and his various enterprises are huge government contractors. I doubt Trump knows what “conflict of interest” means, but Musk, is better educated. (Note that I did not say more ethical.)
It is likely that inquiries into the Trump-Musk relationship will increase in the coming months, especially if Trump wins the election. Musk’s new, intense interest in politics is troubling, to say the least. Is Musk arrogant enough to believe he can buy his way around government rules and regulations? Yes. Is Donald Trump for sale? What do you think? If something looks like a duck and quacks like one, it probably is one. (I added that adage with Waterfowl Season in mind.)
Make sure you vote, preferably for the candidate who does not plan to curtail women’s reproductive rights, deport “illegals” in massive numbers, and crash the economy through an ill-conceived set of tariffs created to offset more tax cuts for the uber-rich and corporations.
© 2024 John Dean, all rights reserved.