Elon Musk sued in Pennsylvania over US$1 million US election giveaways
Civil lawsuit is the first official legal challenge that Trump-backer Musk has faced over his swing state sweepstakes
Elon Musk was sued by the Philadelphia district attorney over his political action committee’s US$1 million a day sweepstakes targeting swing state voters in the final days of the US presidential election.
The DA, Larry Krasner, is asking a state court to stop Musk from engaging in an “unlawful lottery”, which lulls “Philadelphia citizens to give up their personal identifying information and make a political pledge in exchange for the chance to win US$1 million”.
The civil lawsuit is the first official legal challenge that Musk has faced over the programme. Legal experts have questioned the lawfulness of the effort since it was announced, and last week the US Department of Justice sent Musks’s PAC a letter warning that it might violate federal law.
Musk’s pro-Trump America PAC had been giving away US$1 million every day until Election Day on November 5 to a randomly selected signatory of a petition calling for free speech and the right to bear arms. The winner must be a registered voter. The contest doesn’t specify which candidate voters should cast their ballots for.
After the lawsuit was filed, a spokesman for the PAC pointed to a social-media post highlighting that the giveaway is continuing. An email to Musk’s lawyer wasn’t immediately returned.
