Billionaire Elon Musk has offered swing state voters a chance to win $1 million every day until the November 5 election, which has sparked questions over the legality of the new move, with Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro calling it “deeply concerning.”
Musk—the owner of X, formerly Twitter, and CEO of Tesla who has endorsed former President Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election—unveiled a new prize for signers of an online petition from his pro-Trump America PAC, which he has already given at least $75 million to, during his town hall event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, which he held on Saturday in support of the Republican presidential nominee.
The petition is aimed at registered voters in swing states that will decide the presidential election, like Pennsylvania, who support the First and Second Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. Those who sign the petition will be entered into a random daily raffle to win $1 million until Election Day.
“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,” the petition reads.
The first winner, John Dreher, was announced by Musk at the Harrisburg event. The next two winners will be from Pennsylvania and then the $1 million prize opens up to voters from Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina.
Republicans against Trump, an anti-Trump X account, asked on Saturday of Musk’s petition, “How’s this legal?”
NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked Shapiro, the former attorney general of Pennsylvania, during an interview on Meet the Press on Sunday if Musk’s petition is legal.
“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,” Shapiro said.
He continued: “Musk obviously has a right to express his views. He’s made it very, very clear that he supports Donald Trump. 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.”
“So, you think it might not be legal? Yes or no,” Welker probed.
The governor replied: “I think it’s something that law enforcement could take a look at.”
It’s unclear what dark money, or undisclosed money in other words, Shapiro was referring to, but a Wall Street Journal report, which cited people familiar with the matter and was last updated earlier this month, found that money from Musk was routed through Building America’s Future, a political nonprofit aimed at demolishing liberal support for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, in this year’s election. Building America’s Future does not have to disclose donors, according to the Journal‘s report.
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s campaign and America PAC via email for comment late Sunday morning.
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Former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa also raised concerns over the data that Musk’s petition will collect. The petition asks signers to give their first and last name, email address, cell phone number, which is said to only be used to confirm the legitimacy of the signer, and mailing address.
Rangappa replied on X on Sunday to a clip of MSNBC‘s Chris Hayes who showed on his program two different anti-Harris ads—a pro-Israel ad that targeted Muslim voters in the swing state of Michigan and a pro-Palestinian ad targeting Jewish voters in the swing state of Pennsylvania. The ads were paid for by the Future Coalition PAC, which is financially tied to Building America’s Future, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records.
“And this is why he wants people to sign his ‘petition.’ So he can create profiles based on their data (which he has) and microtarget them with the specific messages that will resonate with them,” Rangappa wrote.
Meanwhile, Jennifer Mercieca, a professor in Texas A&M University’s Communication and Journalism Department who focuses on American government, wrote on X on Sunday, “WARNING: anyone thinking of paying anyone to vote a certain way OR anyone accepting money to vote a certain way is violating 18 US Code 597 and will be punished with fines and/or two years in jail.”
In a follow-up post, she wrote, “My dude, it’s not ‘just signing a petition.’ They have to give their name & contact info & they run their voter file. It would be incredibly naive to think that they don’t contact each person to give voting instructions or high pressure them to vote a certain way. Don’t be naive.”
How Are the Candidates Doing in the Swing States?
Poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight, which estimates the candidates’ polling averages by analyzing multiple polls, has Trump and Harris tied in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania at 47.8 percent each for both states as of Sunday afternoon.
Nevada is also about even with Harris less than a percentage point ahead of Trump (47.6 to 47.2 percent). The story is the same for Michigan where Harris has 47.6 percent support compared to Trump’s 47.1 percent.
Meanwhile, Trump is about one point ahead of Harris in North Carolina (48.3 to 47.3 percent), about 2 points ahead of Harris in Georgia (48.9 to 46.9 percent) and Arizona (48.8 to 46.7 percent).
FiveThirtyEight has Harris ahead of Trump nationally by 2 points (48.4 to 46.4 percent) as of Sunday afternoon.
