Elon Musk on Friday asked a federal judge in Austin, Texas, to dismiss a proposed class-action lawsuit against him and his political action committee, arguing that his $1 million daily giveaway to voters in battleground states wasn’t an illegal lottery because the winners weren’t actually chosen at random.
That is sharply different from what people were led to believe when they were asked to sign Musk’s petition pledging support to the First and Second Amendments, according to Arizona resident Jacqueline McAferty, who filed the suit against Musk and America PAC last November.
In the suit, McAferty pointed to Musk’s social media posts in the lead-up to the 2024 election where he said people who signed the petition would be chosen “randomly” each day to win a $1 million prize.
At a ceremony announcing the first winner, Musk brought a Pennsylvania man named John Dreher onstage and presented him with a lottery-style, giant check. “By the way,” Musk told the audience, “John had no idea.”
A second “random” drawing the next day selected Kristine Fishell, also of Pennsylvania, who said it was “the surprise of a lifetime” to be called onstage and presented with a similar lottery-style check.
But Musk’s lawyers say that the participants weren’t actually entering into a random drawing; they were submitting their information to potentially become America PAC spokespeople.
Chance “was not involved here,” the attorneys told the court Friday. “Make no mistake: an eligible voter’s opportunity to earn is not the same thing as a chance to win.”
In her suit, McAferty said she would have never forked over her private information and signed the petition had she known there “was never an actual chance” she’d win $1,000,000.
McAferty is asking for $5 million in damages on behalf of all the battleground state voters who signed the petition.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner also filed a lawsuit against Musk based on similar logic last November, accusing the world’s richest man of influencing voters via an “illegal lottery scheme.”
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Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta ultimately allowed the “sweepstakes” to continue, writing in an opinion issued after the election that Krasner “failed to provide any evidence of misuse beyond mere speculation.”
Musk ultimately spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars ― $277 million ― to back President Donald Trump and other Republicans running for office. Trump has rewarded him with an office in the White House and enough conflicts of interest to likely violate federal law.