Elon Musk likely broke the law by giving voters $1 million, Wisconsin board says
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Billionaire Elon Musk likely broke Wisconsin law when he handed out $1 million checks to voters in the 2025 state Supreme Court election, a bipartisan panel has found.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission last week referred two complaints to the Brown County district attorney’s office, which can choose to bring criminal charges over violating the state law against election bribery. Prosecutors have 40 days to report back to the commission.
Musk, the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, was deeply involved in the effort to flip majority control of the highest court in battleground Wisconsin.
The tech titan and groups he supported spent at least $20 million on the candidate backed by Republicans, Brad Schimel. However, he lost by 10 percentage points to Democratic-backed candidate Susan Crawford.
A month after the lopsided loss, Musk announced that he would be spending far less on political campaigns. Spending on the election topped $100 million, making it the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.
Prosecutors will decide if Musk should be charged over the $1 million checks
The complaints, which are confidential under state law, were brought by voters in Milwaukee and Green Bay, which is in Brown County. Musk handed out checks at a rally there just days before the election.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission, consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans, voted 5-1 in closed session on Thursday to refer the complaints to the district attorney, the commission’s spokesperson Emilee Miklas said.
Brown County District Attorney David Lasee, a Republican, did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday.
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.”
https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-wisconsin-election-million-dollar-checks-2900f27acc373c9f1661a934f00c0c3dOpen linkView original on lemmy.world
63 replies
So it turns out that all this time a law is only really a law if it's enforced. Most of my life I assumed laws were laws when they became laws. But nope, the past few years have demonstrated that my assumption was false.
So no, he didn't break any Wisconsin laws because they ain't gonna do shit.
Don't worry, I'm sure he'll have to pay a big fine of 0.000,000,00,000,001% of his net worth. Oh, and pinky promise not to do it again.
Likely?
It's called buying votes.
No one has any spine anymore
No kidding, I like how they say "broke the law" like anything is going to happen.
yet nobody did anything for 1+years, not even the DNC which they dint bother do any investigating the election machines.
They're so terrified of setting the precedent of sending a rich person to prison. If a crime of this magnitude was committed by a poor person they would be disappeared for eternity.
The amount of damage DOGE did, just so he could shut down all the investigations into his companies, is incalculable. He belongs in prison for the rest of his life.
How about we arrest and charge that motherfucker?
Can't do that. It would be bad for business.
Crooks who do tyranny, specially publicly, have no reason to be allowed to continue doing business
Look what happened when Bear Sterns stopped doing business
I mean isn't it kinda a miracle his businesses still operate, one could argue it's actually good for business.
The fact these companies operate is because of their workers and despite their leader being the biggest dipshit around forcing stupid decisions on them.
Bad for whose business... good for other business.
Consequences in 1… 2… 2 and a half…
I have different kind of french idea, but I won't elaborate on that
Are you new to this planet?
One can wish
Unfortunately, the ones that are supposed to do that, all work with him. I mean it's so obviously clear at this point. So many things have happened in this past little while that should have been instant arrest or investigations, or you know, just plain people getting fired or removal from offices. But it's clear, they all work together.
I guess you could say, the justice system overwhelmingly (not everyone but most) works for the executive branch now. It bows down like a little bitch and licks the executive branch boots.
It always has worked for the executive branch. The difference is the executive branch used to pretend to be impartial and find the best person for the job, and leave them alone to do it. These days the corruption is expected, and even desired, by a large portion of the American population.
But then who would create jobs?!
/s
Golly, I wonder what Dear Leader would say about that?
Did he really post that? And unironically I presume - blaming "The Left". He's the grand master of DARVO.
Everything is illegal unless they do it
Until he gets arrested, it's meaningless.
But man you should see those strongly worded emails. I mean they are enough to make you really think for a few seconds before hitting delete.
No shit
He did. They should make his punishment consist primarily of public service. Like 20,000 hours that has to be completed within 4 years.
His money is endless, but not his time.
If he has to spend eight hours a day 5 days a week for the next 4 years picking up trash along the side of the road, he's not going to have time to try to interfere with elections.
And he may actually learn a lesson about hard work. That's what justice is supposed to look like.
I like this, but partially because the maths makes it even worse than you stated:
20,000 h / (365.25 d * 4) ≈ 13.7 hrs/day
Sounds fair to me.
Cruel and unusual! Working a real labor job? He’d be dead within a week!
So win win then
That still leaves the weekend and the remaining 16 hours a day. You would think that's not enough time to do anything extracurricular, but you might be surprised how much sleep can be skipped during a drug-fueled manic episode.
His time is not endless?? This really is the worst timeline
And???
It ain't like the "justice system" is going to do jack shit about it. You have to be poor in order to get your ass thrown in prison.
Except that's not how it went down, it wasn't simply trying to get people to vote, you had to sign a form of intent saying you would vote for their candidate before you would be eligible for whatever piddly shit they were bribing people with, it should absolutely be an open and shut case in any just world.. but
Not just that, I think he didn't even give it to the people that entered but pre-chose people. Fucked up for multiple reasons.
Likely!?!
I'm so sick of this kid glove horseshit.
Epstein Island is likely illegal, but a trans immigrant merely existing is definitely a domestic terrorist.
To be fair to journalists, they have to phrase it this way, until it's proven in a court of law I guess.
But I do hope that the article goes out of its way to point out that he broke the law already, many times, even with very similar shit.
Well gestures wildly he's broken the law a few times.
Mee-lon borke the law countless times. The president of the us of na broke the law countless times (the supreme court said that's ok).
No kidding bribing people to vote is clearly illegal.
Even if they fined him a trillion dollars he would still be a billionaire.
I want him to have to pay a million dollars to vevery person who entered. Plus a fine ten times that amount into an election integrity fund.
I rather see him give a million to everyone in the US. It's like it'd bankrupt him
No shit.
Throw that bitch ass in prison
Whoa! I know a whole set of Americans who are apparently really upset at immigrants coming and breaking the law, or so they say. This will be the top story on Fox News any minute now.
Unfortunately though, he's too rich for consequences, and if recent history has shown us anything, it's that our corpo overlords think no consequences == no crime.
Also no negative effect on the people in charge = no crime
Gee, almost decided it might be a problem before the elecrions after next elections after the problem.
So fucking do something already.
Timothy Mcveigh likely broke the law when he bombed the post office in Oklahoma.
No. You don't say...
That was only last year? It feels like three lifetimes ago.
Is election fraud punished en gros or per vote?
Who is going to enforce that?
Minimum wage employees???
Did anyone ever to track and report further on the "winners"?
Yah think?
likely?
Wait. He actually GAVE them money? I thought I heard he only said he would, but never paid out because all the checks bounced.
Hopefully corruption along the way doesn't turn this into a, ya he did it, but his candidate lost so we'll give it a pass, type situation.