Why did Elon Musk wear a cheese hat and hand out $1,000,000 cheques on stage?
Elon Musk has handed out two million dollar cheques ‘in appreciation’ of voters in a swing state who signed a petition to support ‘free speech and the right to bear arms’.
The tech giant did so in a cheese-shaped hat, a nod to Wisconsin’s famous NFL team, the Greenbay Packers, as he ‘rewarded’ two of the state’s voters.
Musk went as far as to declare the two winners ‘spokespeople’ for his political group.
The awards came ahead of a judicial race in Wisconsin, into which he has pumped more than £15.4 million, deeming it ‘vital’ to the country as two additional seats in the US House are up for grabs.
‘It’s a super big deal. I’m not phoning it in. I’m here in person,’ he said. ‘The House majority is now razor thin.
‘And if the (Wisconsin) Supreme Court can redraw the districts, they will gerrymander the district and deprive Wisconsin of two seats on the Republican side. Then they will try to stop all the government reforms we are getting done, for you the American people,’ he claimed.
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court refused to hear a last-minute attempt by the state’s Democratic attorney general to stop the giveaway, the ruling coming minutes before the planned start of the rally.
Two lower courts had already rejected the legal challenge by Josh Kaul, who argues that Musk’s offer to give $1,000,000 away to those voting for Republican candidates violates a state law.
‘Wisconsin law prohibits offering anything of value to induce anyone to vote. Yet, Elon Musk did just that,’ Kaul said.
However, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court declined to take the case as an original action. The court gave no rationale for its decision.
Musk’s lawyers claim he was exercising his free speech rights with the giveaways and any attempt to restrict that would violate both the Wisconsin and US constitutions.
The payments were ‘intended to generate a grassroots movement in opposition to activist judges, not to expressly advocate for or against any candidate’, Musk’s attorneys argued in court filings.
Before the 2024 election, Musk said he would be ‘awarding $1 million to people who signed the petition every day from now until the election’.
The petition asked for people to pledge their support for the first and second amendments – which support free speech and gun rights – and people were asked for their contact details.
Signers needed to be registered in key battleground states Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina.
Federal law states that anyone who ‘pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting’ faces a potential $10,000 fine or a five-year prison sentence.
The law also covers anything of monetary value, like liquor or lottery chances.
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