While at a campaign event last Saturday, October 19th, Elon Musk shared that he will be giving $1 million each day until Election Day to a Trump supporter that: is registered to vote, lives in a swing state, and has signed his petition.
CNN quoted his announcement in which he said, “We want to try to get over a million, maybe 2 million voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment. … We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election” (Cohen, Oct 21). The first winner of the $1 million was revealed on Saturday, at the event. According to the New York Post, “a man named John Dreher, reportedly had no idea he was going to walk away from the event with a massive check — and has since agreed to become a spokesman for the petition drive” (Keane, Oct 20).
The petition that Musk is mentioning is called, “Petition in Favor of Free Speech and the Right to Bear Arms” and the New York Post says that, “Petition signers are promised $47 if they can get voters from other swing states to sign on” (Keane, Oct 20).
Although, the whole ordeal may be illegal as CNN states it’s a federal crime for anyone who “‘pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting’ It’s punishable by up to five years in prison” (Cohen, Oct 21). This subject is a gray area, though, as an article on the New York Post says, “Bradley Smith, a former Federal Election Commission chairman, argued that the petition was too indirect to be against the law. ‘My inclination would be to say he’s not paying them to register to vote…Most of the benefits are going to people already registered to vote’” (Keane, Oct 20).
Musk, the richest man in the world, stopped supporting Joe Biden in 2021 when an article on CNBC says that, “the White House declined to invite Tesla to an electric vehicle summit” (Kolodny, Oct 20). Although, his support for Trump didn’t fully begin until the first assassination attempt that occurred in July when he said that he realized, “No one’s even bothering to try and kill Kamala, you know, because there’s no point” (Kolodny, Oct 20). The article on CNBC goes on to explain that he views Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as “puppets.” Since the start of his support of Trump, he has given over $70 million to the campaign.
