Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, left, and Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump attend a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
The U.S. Department of Justice has reportedly issued a warning to a pro-Donald Trump political action committee run by Elon Musk over the group’s daily $1 million lottery for registered voters in swing states.
A letter from the DOJ’s public integrity section was recently sent to Musk’s America PAC about the lottery, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed “people briefed on the matter.”
The anonymous sources cited by the cable news network say the letter warns that the lottery potentially violates federal law.
Musk announced the lottery at a Trump campaign event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Since then, at least two winners have been announced — each of whom had already voted by mail as Republicans in the Keystone State before they entered the sweepstakes.
Under the contest rules, a registered voter must sign a petition expressing support for the First and Second Amendments. Only then are they entered the lottery for the daily $1 million prize.
“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,” Musk said last weekend. “We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election.”
Under U.S. law, it is plainly illegal to pay people to vote. Musk’s contest is several steps removed from that clear prohibition.
Some election law experts, however, say that paying people to register to vote is also illegal under federal law.
On his Election Law Blog, UCLA Law Professor Rick Hasen wrote that paying people to register to vote is “clearly illegal” under 52 U.S.C. 10307(c), which criminalizes “false information in registering or voting” and punishes the offense by up to five years in prison.
That law reads, in relevant part:
Whoever knowingly or willfully […] pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both …
Critics say the status condition of the lottery — that it is only open to registered voters — is merely a way to encourage voter registration and, therefore, a stealth way of paying people to register to vote.
In response to one high-profile complaint posted on Musk-owned X (formerly Twitter) that the outspoken tech billionaire was “paying to register Republicans,” Musk said: “You can be from any or no political party and you don’t even have to vote.”
Musk’s America PAC also offers a lesser financial incentive for every person who refers registered voters to sign the operative petition.
“Receive $47 for each registered voter you refer that signs a petition pledging support for the First and Second Amendments,” the website reads.
Concerns have only continued to swirl as the election nears.
Earlier this week, a group of former federal prosecutors and onetime Republican-appointed government officials sent a letter to the DOJ voicing concerns about the financial incentive. On Tuesday, the agency confirmed they were aware of the letter and had received it — but declined to say anything substantive about it.
Now, if CNN’s report is any indication, the DOJ’s own stance on the matter is less than concrete — but leans toward an interpretation of federal law wherein a contest premised on voter registration is a way of paying people to register.
Of note is the ambit of the DOJ division that reportedly sent the letter. The public integrity is a self-proclaimed arbiter of “election crimes.”
It is unclear if the reported warning also contained any kind of potential threat or warning of an enforcement action or whether the warning was more academic in nature. The DOJ has declined to comment on the matter.
Law&Crime reached out to America PAC officials in each of the seven swing states where the $1 million daily lottery is available — Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona — for comment on this story, but no response was immediately forthcoming at time of publication.
Matt Naham contributed to this report.
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