Wisconsin voters will go to the polls next week to choose between candidates for the state’s Supreme Court. Elon Musk has spent $17 million so far to support the Republican-aligned candidate, according to the Associated Press. And the billionaire oligarch is really spreading the money around this weekend before Tuesday’s vote, offering up $1 million each to two people who attend his rally in Wisconsin on Sunday.
Musk tweeted Friday morning about his planned visit to the state, though an exact location for his appearance hasn’t been announced yet.
“On Sunday night, I will give a talk in Wisconsin,” Musk tweeted. “Entrance is limited to those who have voted in the Supreme Court election. I will also personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote. This is super important.”
That offer seems to run afoul of Wisconsin state bribery laws, as countless people pointed out on social media Friday. And it looks like the billionaire oligarch saw the outcry. Or at least his lawyers did. Musk deleted the tweet to “clarify” what he meant, which presumably means one of his attorneys provided him with wording that might get him into less legal trouble.
“On Sunday night, I will give a talk in Wisconsin,” Musk wrote in the new tweet on Friday afternoon. “To clarify a previous post, entrance is limited to those who have signed the petition in opposition to activist judges. I will also hand over checks for a million dollars to 2 people to be spokesmen for the petition.”
One of Musk’s political action committees already gave out $1 million to a Green Bay man on Wednesday. Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford is Democratically-aligned, and her spokesperson told the AP that Musk’s payments are “corrupt” and “extreme,” calling them “disgraceful to our state and judiciary.” Crawford’s challenger, Brad Schimel, has closely aligned himself with Trump and Republicans.
This isn’t the first time Musk has offered large cash handouts in exchange for votes. The Tesla CEO did the exact same thing during the 2024 presidential election in swing states that he was working to deliver for President Donald Trump. Musk initially said he was offering $1 million prizes in Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan “randomly” in the lead up to the 2024 election. But his lawyer later clarified there was nothing random about the giveaway. The cash handouts were later branded as “salaries” for promotional work supporting the First and Second Amendments.
Prosecutors in Philadelphia sued over the scheme, but a judge allowed the brazen plan to go forward. Ultimately, the prosecutors dropped the case after the election, which seems to be why we as a society are at this point now. Anyone can do illegal things before elections, as long as they win. At least that seems to be the takeaway.
Musk has been running roughshod over democracy ever since Trump tasked him with leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a pseudo-agency that’s been systematically destroying the federal government since Trump took power on Jan. 20. That also happens to be the day Musk made two Nazi-style salutes, gestures that he would say much later weren’t intended to be related to Nazism.
Wisconsin’s Attorney General Josh Kaul released a statement Friday announcing his intention to file an injunction against Musk’s actions in the state.
“The Wisconsin Department of Justice is committed to ensuring that elections in Wisconsin are safe, secure, free and fair. We are aware of the offer recently posted by Elon Musk to award a million dollars to two people at an event in Wisconsin this weekend,” Kaul said, according to local news outlet WTMJ. “Based on our understanding of applicable Wisconsin law, we intend to take legal action today to seek a court order to stop this from happening.”
Kaul filed an injunction in Dane County Circuit Court, where the case was randomly assigned to the Democratically-aligned Susan Crawford, reports the AP. Crawford is apparently recusing herself, according to a spokesperson who spoke with the news service.
It’s not clear how quickly the injunction will be ruled on, but whatever happens in Tuesday’s election, here’s hoping the Wisconsin AGE doesn’t drop the case. This stuff is so much bigger than one race in one state. The U.S. has reached a point of existential crisis as international students are getting abducted by secret police and shipped to ICE facilities thousands of miles away, all for writing an op-ed in the student newspaper. And people are already being shipped to a foreign prison without trial. If Musk is allowed to just keep buying votes, and Musk’s political allies get to just keep destroying the U.S. government, it really is over for this country.