Elon Musk's $1 million election giveaways get court approval

Philadelphia District Attorney sued Tesla owner for allegedly ‘unlawful lottery’ program to influence election

Elon Musks $1 million election giveaways get court approval
Elon Musk's $1 million election giveaways get court approval

SpaceX owner Elon Musk gets a clean chit from a Pennsylvania state judge to make cash giveaways to the voters ahead of the US presidential elections.

According to BBC, Republican candidate Donald Trump supporters have been offering cash prizes to the registered voters in a key state of Pennsylvania through his political group America PAC, which several US officials suggested as unlawful and against electoral law.

Following this, Philadelphia District Attorney Lawrence Krasner sued Musk over the $1 million (£770,000) giveaways and said Musk "must be stopped immediately, before the upcoming presidential election."

On Thursday, October 31, 2024, a hearing in which the tech giant did not appear before the court, Judge Angelo Foglietta put the lawsuit on hold until the federal court’s decision. If the federal court declines, the case will resume in state court.

After the judge's ruling, Musk wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the ruling was “American Justice FTW (for the win)."

Meanwhile, lawyer John Summers, who is working with the Philadelphia District Attorney, told reporters, “We will proceed to federal court, and we will address the issues there and seek to have the matter remanded back to the state court. After all, this is a case that involves state law issues.”

For the unversed, Musk earlier in October announced that he would randomly award a $1 million prize to people in battleground states, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina every day till election day, November 5, 2024.