Musk May Have Violated Wisconsin Election Law With $1M Voter Payments
Commission Votes to Refer Complaints to District Attorney
Elon Musk likely broke the law by – Elon Musk likely broke the law when he distributed one million dollars in checks to Wisconsin voters participating in the 2025 state Supreme Court election. A bipartisan committee in Wisconsin reached this conclusion after reviewing evidence that the billionaire entrepreneur may have violated state regulations regarding election bribery.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission forwarded two separate complaints to the Brown County district attorney’s office during a closed meeting on Thursday. This referral gives prosecutors the authority to pursue criminal charges under Wisconsin statutes if they determine Musk’s actions constituted illegal voter inducement.
Financial Commitment and Election Results
Musk, who leads Tesla and founded SpaceX, invested heavily in Wisconsin’s judicial contest. His political action committee, America PAC, along with allied organizations, committed at least twenty million dollars supporting Republican nominee Brad Schimel. Despite this substantial financial backing, Schimel lost to Susan Crawford by ten percentage points.
The 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race became the most expensive judicial contest in American history, with total spending exceeding one hundred million dollars. Following the disappointing outcome for Republicans, Musk announced plans to significantly reduce his political campaign contributions going forward.
The Social Media Promise and Voter Payments
The complaints came from voters in Milwaukee and Green Bay, where Musk personally presented the checks at a campaign gathering just days before Election Day. Three Wisconsin residents ultimately received payments from Musk, with two obtaining their checks face-to-face at the Green Bay event.
According to the commission’s motion, sufficient evidence exists to conclude that Musk violated Wisconsin law through a social media announcement. The post promised one million dollars to individuals who cast ballots in the Supreme Court election “in order to induce them to vote in that election.” Musk’s representatives did not immediately respond to inquiries about the findings.
Legal Challenges and Constitutional Arguments
Two weeks before the contest, America PAC had previously offered one hundred dollars to voters who signed petitions opposing what they termed “activist judges” or referred others to sign such documents. This approach mirrors a strategy Musk employed before the 2024 presidential election, when his committee pledged to pay one million dollars daily to Wisconsin and six other competitive states’ voters who endorsed First and Second Amendment protections.
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a government oversight organization, has filed a lawsuit in Brown County seeking to permanently bar Musk from making cash payments in the state. The pending case alleges that Musk and two organizations he finances breached vote bribery prohibitions and unauthorized lottery regulations, characterizing his conduct as an unlawful conspiracy and public nuisance.
Additionally, Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general attempted to prevent Musk from distributing checks to two voters, but state courts denied this request. In legal documents submitted in 2025, Musk’s lawyers contended that the giveaways represented the exercise of free speech rights protected under both the Wisconsin and United States constitutions. They further argued that the payments aimed to cultivate grassroots opposition to activist judges rather than directly supporting or opposing any particular candidate.
Ongoing Legal Proceedings
Crawford’s victory maintained liberal dominance on the state Supreme Court, and that majority expanded to five-to-two following the recent election of another Democratic-backed nominee, Chris Taylor. Meanwhile, a Pennsylvania judge previously permitted Musk’s similar payment initiative to proceed through Election Day, ruling that prosecutors had not demonstrated the effort constituted an illegal lottery.
The motion approved by the elections commission said it found probable cause that Musk broke Wisconsin law by making a social media post offering $1 million to people who voted in the Supreme Court election “in order to induce them to vote in that election.”
All complaints remain confidential under Wisconsin state law as legal proceedings continue. District Attorney David Lasee, a Republican, has yet to provide a public statement regarding the referral. State law requires prosecutors to submit their findings to the commission within forty days of receiving the complaints.
