Buying Votes, Literally? Elon Musk's $1 Million Scheme Faces Tough Questions

Billionaire and Space X founder Elon Musk announced that he will give away $1 million to voters for signing his political action committee's petition backing the Constitution. The X boss, who has also pledged at least $70 million to help Donald Trump's reelection bid, handed the payout to two people on Sunday. However, the giveaway is raising several legal questions among experts who say it is a violation of the law to link a cash handout to signing a petition that also requires a person to be registered to vote.Musk started the America PAC, a political action organization to support Trump by mobilizing and registering voters in battleground states. On Sunday, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro expressed concern about the tech billionaire's plan. Read More: “I think 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. That is deeply concerning," he said.

Lets's dive in. What is the scheme exactly?Musk promised on Saturday that he would give away $1 million a day, until the November 5 election, for people signing his PAC's petition supporting the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech, and the Second Amendment, with its right “to keep and bear arms.”Two people - John Dreher and Kristine Fishel - received the checks on Sunday. By announcing the payouts, Musk is aiming to register voters in support of Trump. The PAC is also pushing to persuade voters in other key states.Read More: It’s not the first offer of cash the organization has made. Musk has posted on X, the platform he purchased as Twitter before renaming it, that he would offer people $47 — and then $100 — for referring others to register and signing the petition. Is Elon Musk Buying Votes? Exploring Legal ChallengesBrendan Fischer, a campaign finance lawyer, told the Associated Press that Musk’s giveaway approaches a legal boundary. That’s because the PAC is requiring registration as a prerequisite to become eligible for the $1 million check. “There would be few doubts about the legality if every Pennsylvania-based petition signer were eligible, but conditioning the payments on registration arguably violates the law,” Fischer said in an email.Rick Hasen, a UCLA Law School political science professor, went further. He pointed to a law that prohibits paying people for registering to vote or for voting. “If all he was doing was paying people to sign the petition, that might be a waste of money. But there’s nothing illegal about it,” Hasen said in a telephone interview. “The problem is that the only people eligible to participate in this giveaway are the people who are registered to vote. And that makes it illegal.” Can the PAC and Trump’s campaign coordinate?Typically coordination between campaigns and so-called super PACs had been forbidden. But a recent opinion by the Federal Election Commissioner, which regulates federal campaigns, permitted candidates and these groups to work together in certain cases, including getting out the vote efforts. (With AP inputs)