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The U.S. Justice Department has issued a warning to Elon Musk's political action committee, America PAC, over his offer to give $1 million to registered voters in swing states. The department's public integrity section cautioned that the giveaway could potentially violate federal law, according to an anonymous source cited by Bloomberg.
Musk, the world's richest man and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, announced the giveaway at a campaign event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, while campaigning for former President Donald Trump. The giveaway is tied to a petition launched by his PAC affirming support for the First and Second Amendments. The website for the petition states that the program is exclusively open to registered voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina.
Federal law prohibits anyone from paying or offering to pay or accepting payment for registration to vote or for voting, punishable by up to five years in prison. Election law experts have raised concerns that the giveaway could be considered a form of bribery, as it is limited to registered voters. After the legal outcry, Musk's group tweaked some of their language around the sweepstakes.
Despite the changes, election law experts continue to express concerns. David Becker, a former Justice Department official handling voting rights cases, stated that this is exactly what the statute was designed to criminalize. Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the UCLA School of Law, also referred to Musk's sweepstakes as "clearly illegal vote-buying" in a blog post.