Elon Musk is facing a US voter fraud lawsuit on a petition scheme worth $1 million per day

Elon Musk will have to face a US lawsuit that says he lied to voters with his $1 million-a-day petition plan.

A federal judge told Elon Musk that he needs to answer to a case from voters who say the richest man in the world tricked them into signing a petition to support the US Constitution in exchange for a chance to win $1 million every day.

In Austin, Texas, US District Judge Robert Pitman said that Jacqueline McAferty had a good case when she said in her proposed class action that Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, had wrongfully gotten her to give away personal information as part of the giveaway near the end of the 2024 election campaign.

Lawyers for Musk and America PAC did not answer right away when asked for comment. Musk started America PAC to help Donald Trump win the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

McAferty, who lives in Arizona, said that Musk and America PAC got people in seven key states to sign the petition by saying that the $1 million would be given away randomly, like in a raffle, even though the people who signed had no chance of actually getting it.

She also said that people who signed had to give their names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses.

Musk wanted the case to be thrown out because he said there were several “red flags” that showed he had not run an illegal lotto. He said that the people who were meant to get the $1 million were said to have been “selected to earn” it and were expected to speak for America PAC. This, he said, disproved the idea that the money was a “prize.”

But Judge Pitman pointed to other things the suspects said that made it sound like they were “giving” the $1 million and that it could be “won.” He wrote, “It is reasonable for plaintiff to have relied on those statements to think that defendants were objectively giving her the chance to enter a random lottery, even if that was not what they in fact meant to do.”

Musk also didn’t agree with the idea that petition signers were hurt by giving out their personal information. Judge Pitman said that someone who deals with political data could speak about how useful this kind of information is for voters in states that are close races.

It was made on November 5, 2024, which was Election Day. A judge in Philadelphia had refused to stop Musk’s giveaway the day before, saying that the city’s top lawyer had not shown that it was an illegal lottery.

Judge Pitman said the case would go forward. President Barack Obama named him to the bench in 2014.

Musk lives in Texas, and his electric car company, Tesla, is based in Austin. Both of these things draw attention to Musk.

US District Court, Western District of Texas, Case No. 24-01346 is the name of the case. It is McAferty v. Musk et al.