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Wisconsin AG Sues to Block Musk's Multimillion Dollar Election Eve Voter Bribe
Attorney General Josh Kaul accused the world's richest person and top Trump adviser of "a blatant attempt to violate" Wisconsin's election bribery law.
Mar 28, 2025
Democratic Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to stop Elon Musk—the world's richest person and a senior adviser to President Donald Trump—from handing out $1 million checks to voters this weekend in an apparent blatant violation of bribery law meant to swing next Tuesday's crucial state Supreme Court election.
"Wisconsin law forbids anyone from offering or promising to give anything of value to an elector in order to induce the elector to go to the polls, vote or refrain from voting, or vote for a particular person," the lawsuit notes. "Musk's announcement of his intention to pay $1 million to two Wisconsin electors who attend his event on Sunday night, specifically conditioned on their having voted in the upcoming April 3, 2025, Wisconsin Supreme Court election, is a blatant attempt to violate Wis. Stat. § 12.11. This must not happen."
On Thursday, Musk announced on his X social media site that he will "give a talk" at an undisclosed location in Wisconsin, and that "entrance is limited to those who have signed the petition in opposition to activist judges."
"I will also hand over checks for a million dollars to two people to be spokesmen for the petition," the Tesla and SpaceX CEO and de facto head of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency wrote.
As Common Dreams reported earlier last week, Musk's super political action committee, America PAC, is offering registered Wisconsin voters $100 to sign a petition stating that they reject "the actions of activist judges who impose their own views" and demand "a judiciary that respects its role—interpreting, not legislating."
The cash awards—which critics have decried as bribery—are part of a multimillion dollar effort by Musk and affiliated super PACs to boost Judge Brad Schimel of Waukesha County, the Trump-backed, right-wing state Supreme Court candidate locked in a tight race with Dane County Judge Susan Crawford.
Left-leaning justices are clinging to a 4-3 advantage on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Crawford and Schimel are vying to fill the seat now occupied by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, a liberal who is not running for another 10-year term. Control of the state's highest court will likely impact a wide range of issues, from abortion to labor rights to voter suppression.
Musk has openly admitted why he's spending millions of dollars on the race: It "will decide how congressional districts are drawn." That's what he said while hosting Schimel and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) for a discussion on X last weekend.
"In my opinion that's the most important thing, which is a big deal given that the congressional majority is so razor-thin," Musk argued. "It could cause the House to switch to Democrat if that redrawing takes place."
Crawford campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman issued a statement Friday calling Musk's planned cash giveaway a "last-minute desperate distraction."
"Wisconsinites don't want a billionaire like Musk telling them who to vote for," Honeyman added, "and on Tuesday, voters should reject Musk's lackey Brad Schimel."
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Musk Accused of 'Bribing Wisconsin Voters' Ahead of State Supreme Court Election
Groups linked to world's richest man are spending big on a state-level race that has been called the "first referendum on Musk-ism" since Trump's return to White House.
Mar 21, 2025
The world's richest man, billionaire Elon Musk, has been accused of bribing Wisconsin voters into aligning with him politically ahead of a charged election to select a new Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, a race that Musk-backed groups have contributed millions of dollars toward.
Musk's super political action committee, America PAC, is currently circulating a petition opposing "activist judges" and offering registered Wisconsin voters $100 if they sign the petition. Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump recently pushed for a federal judge to be impeached after he ruled against the Trump administration—part of their broader attack on the federal judiciary.
Writer and commentator Dean Obeidallah reposted reporting about the petition and wrote: "Elon Musk now bribing Wisconsin voters as he seeks to BUY a Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin. The election is April 1. We need to win this. If you have friends in Wisconsin please urge them to vote for Judge Susan Crawford. Say NO to OLIGARCHY!"
"This is what a broken campaign finance system looks like," added former Secretary of Labor and professor at the the University of California, Berkeley Robert Reich on X.
On April 1—the final day to participate in Musk's petition—voters in Wisconsin will decide a contest between Crawford, a liberal Dane County judge, and former Republican attorney general and current Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel. The election will determine the ideological swing of the state's highest court, which since 2023 has had a liberal majority for the first time in over a decade.
According to the The New York Times, the petition from Musk serves to "drive attention from the news media, increase awareness and voter registration among conservative voters, and help America PAC collect data on the most energized Wisconsinites who are likely to turn out for the conservative candidate, Brad Schimel."
While Wisconsin Supreme Court races are officially nonpartisan, meaning candidates do not run as Democrats and Republicans, the battle lines are clearly demarcated. Schimel is running "an unapologetically MAGA campaign," according to Mother Jones.
Building America's Future, a group linked to Musk, and America PAC, "have spent more than $11 million attacking progressive Judge Susan Crawford and supporting the Trump-aligned candidate Brad Schimel," Mother Jones reported on March 12. Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler put the figure higher. At a rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin on Tuesday he told attendees that groups backed by Musk have spent $13.2 million on ads attacking Crawford, per Wisconsin Public Radio.
In addition to the stakes around the ideological bent of the court, the election also has national implications. "The Wisconsin Supreme Court race is the first referendum on Musk-ism," Wikler recently told Mother Jones. Similarly, The American Prospect reported Friday that "if Schimel wins, it will be a reminder that Trump and Musk's agenda doesn't stop in Washington, D.C."
"I think that Democrats and progressives across the board are in a defensive posture at all levels. The sky is falling. The federal bureaucracy is being destroyed," Thomas Nelson, a Democratic county executive in Outagamie County, Wisconsin, told the Prospect, speaking of the race's national consequences. "And it's only a matter of time [until] we're going to sustain direct hits on the ground in local government."
The tactic of the petition also echoes a controversial maneuver used by Musk during the 2024 presidential race, when he offered a million-dollar gift each day to a registered voter from a battleground state who has signed America PAC's petition in support of the First and Second Amendments.
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'Musk Must Be Stopped': Philly DA Sues to Halt Million-Dollar Lottery Scheme
"Running an illegal lottery and violating consumer protections is ample basis for an injunction," reads the lawsuit filed by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner.
Oct 28, 2024
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner filed a civil lawsuit Monday aimed at stopping billionaire Elon Musk's million-dollar giveaway scheme, calling it an "indisputably" illegal lottery aimed at influencing the 2024 presidential election in favor of Republican nominee Donald Trump.
The lawsuit against Musk and America PAC—a pro-Trump group financed by the Tesla CEO—states that in addition to being an "unlawful lottery" under "unambiguous Pennsylvania law," the scheme "also violates the Commonwealth's consumer protection laws."
"In connection with their scheme, [Musk and America PAC] are deploying deceptive, vague, or misleading statements that create a likelihood of confusion or misunderstanding," the filing states. "For example, they have not published a complete set of lottery rules or shown how they are protecting the privacy of participants' personal information. Also, though Musk says that a winner's selection is 'random,' that appears false because multiple winners that have been selected are individuals who have shown up at Trump rallies in Pennsylvania."
"Running an illegal lottery and violating consumer protections is ample basis for an injunction and concluding that America PAC and Musk must be stopped, immediately, before the upcoming presidential election on November 5," the lawsuit continues. "That is because America PAC and Musk hatched their illegal lottery scheme to influence voters in that election."
Announced during a pro-Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania on October 19, the lottery involves a million-dollar gift each day to a registered voter from a battleground state who has signed America PAC's petition in support of the First and Second Amendments. Nine million-dollar checks have been handed out so far, four of which went to Pennsylvania voters, the PAC's website shows.
Election law experts have said from its inception that the scheme is clearly illegal because only registered voters from select battleground states are eligible for the prize—effectively making it a monetary incentive to register to vote. Federal law states that anyone who "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."
"This civil action neither precludes nor requires potential future action under Pennsylvania criminal law."
In a statement, Krasner's office said that "the Philadelphia district attorney is charged with protecting the public from public nuisances and unfair trade practices, including illegal lotteries."
"The DA is also charged with protecting the public from interference with the integrity of elections," the statement added. "Today, the Philadelphia DA filed a civil legal action under Pennsylvania law. This civil action neither precludes nor requires potential future action under Pennsylvania criminal law. The Philadelphia DA will litigate the factual allegations and legal arguments that underlie today’s filing on the record and in court."
Krasner's lawsuit is the first legal action taken over the lottery scheme, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Last week, as Common Dreams reported, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) arguing that the million-dollar reward scheme "appears to constitute payment to encourage voter registration and to influence votes."
Musk has spent at least $118 million during the current election cycle to support Trump's bid for a second White House term, federal filings show.
In a report released two days before the group submitted its FEC complaint, Public Citizen made the case that Musk's efforts to influence the 2024 presidential election likely stems at least in part from his "self-serving desire to thwart the numerous civil and criminal investigations into his businesses."
The group observed that Tesla, X, and SpaceX are each either under investigation or facing accusations of illegal conduct from the U.S. Department of Justice, the National Labor Relations Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, and other federal agencies.
"Elon Musk isn't running for office in 2024," Public Citizen said. "But Musk himself may still be the main beneficiary of his own political spending."
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