On Tuesday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz joined the chorus of reservations about Elon Musk’s million-dollar-a-day pro-Trump lottery—if a bit more colorfully: “Look, Elon’s on that stage jumping around, skipping like a dipshit,” Walz said of the tech billionaire’s recent appearance at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“That guy is literally the richest man in the world,” Walz continued. “And he’s spending millions of dollars to help Donald Trump buy an election.”
Walz’s comments, delivered at a campaign event in Madison, Wisconsin, come amid growing scrutiny of Musk’s profligate swing state antics. Since early October, Musk’s America PAC has promised cash payouts to swing state voters who sign a petition declaring their support for the First and Second Amendments or refer another voter to sign. Then, on Sunday, Musk upped the ante by promising to award $1 million each day until November 5 to a random signatory.
Officially, Musk has described the drive as an effort to raise awareness of America PAC’s petition, which does not reference politics or the election. However, given the PAC’s other canvassing and voter registration activities and Musk’s ongoing pro-Trump speaking tour in Pennsylvania, some observers have surmised that the campaign’s true goals involve turning out new Republican voters. That could potentially violate federal election law, which prohibits paying people to vote or register to vote. Violators can face prison terms and fines of up to $10,000.
On Sunday, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat and former contender for Kamala Harris’s running mate, called Musk’s lottery “deeply concerning” and said “it’s something that law enforcement could take a look at.” A day later, a group of former Republican lawmakers, advisers and Justice Department officials asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the initiative. “We are aware of nothing like this in modern political history,” the letter reads, according to the Washington Post. “We urge you to investigate whether America PAC’s payments are prohibited payments for voter registration.”
If the lottery is a poorly disguised registration scheme, it’s not clear it’s been terribly successful. The two initial winners were both long-time Republicans who already voted in this year’s election, according to Politico. Musk nevertheless congratulated both winners on X this week, in between screenshots of Republican voter registration numbers and debunked conspiracy memes. On Saturday, he also tangled with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, who accused the tech billionaire and Trump surrogate of using the platform to spread “dangerous disinformation” about her state’s election integrity.
Musk—who was promised a prominent post in a potential future Trump administration—has thrown his full weight behind the former president in recent months, donating $75 million to America PAC since the summer. On Monday, The New York Times reported that he gifted almost $1 million to the Trump campaign directly, the maximum contribution allowed by law. And on Tuesday, Fox News reported that Musk had made a “very substantial” contribution to a separate pro-Republican PAC that targets Hispanic voters.
