After news of DOJ warning, Elon Musk’s super PAC didn’t announce ‘daily’ lottery winner on Wednesday
By Marshall Cohen and Shania Shelton, CNN
(CNN) — Elon Musk’s super PAC didn’t announce a winner for its “daily” $1 million giveaway to registered swing state voters on Wednesday, the same day news broke that the Justice Department warned Musk’s group that its sweepstakes might be illegal.
The pro-Trump group, America PAC, had publicly named a winner every day since Saturday, when Musk announced that he would award $1 million every day to people who sign his petition. The petition is in support of the 1st and 2nd Amendments to the Constitution, but importantly, only registered voters in the battleground states can sign the petition and are therefore eligible for the money.
CNN reported Wednesday afternoon that the Justice Department had sent a warning letter to the super PAC, notifying it that the lottery might violate federal law against offering incentives such as cash or prizes to induce voter registration, people briefed on the matter told CNN.
The super PAC has announced its winners each day to fanfare, with flashy videos posted to social media and celebratory tweets from Musk. It’s unclear if the Justice Department letter is why the super PAC didn’t publicly name a winner on Wednesday.
CNN has reached out to the super PAC seeking comment.
The X owner and Tesla CEO has defended the giveaway multiple times on social media. In response to a post claiming Musk was “paying to register Republicans,” Musk said on X that winners “can be from any or no political party and you don’t even have to vote.” He did not address the potential legal problem of only opening the lottery to registered voters.
After Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat and former state attorney general, said Sunday that the giveaway was “deeply concerning” and deserved legal scrutiny, Musk posted on his X platform that it was “concerning that he would say such a thing.”
On Sunday, the second day of the sweepstakes, the super PAC reframed its messaging around the giveaway, describing the money as payment for a job. In social media posts, the group said winners would be “selected to earn $1M as a spokesperson for America PAC” — and subsequently posted pro-Trump testimonial videos featuring the winners.
However, several election law experts who spoke to CNN pointed out that the fine print on Musk’s super PAC website explaining the official terms of entry did not change.
Musk, the richest man in the world, has thrown his support behind Trump and has given more than $75 million to his pro-Trump super PAC. He has said he hopes the sweepstakes will boost registration among Trump voters.
He made his first appearance with Trump on the campaign trail earlier this month when he called on people to register to vote and cast Democrats as a threat to democracy at Trump’s rally returning to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of an assassination attempt in July.
Musk also held his own town halls last week in Pennsylvania, where he urged voters to support Trump and promoted several debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.
CNN’s Evan Perez, Hannah Rabinowitz and Daniel Strauss contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
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