New Lawsuit Alleges Fraud Behind Elon Musk’s Million-Dollar Vote “Contest” 

Sommers Schwartz senior shareholder Jason J. Thompson has filed a class action lawsuit against Elon Musk and the American PAC he founded, claiming a highly publicized million-dollar-a-day swing-state voter sweepstakes was actually a fraudulent scheme.

Musk’s so-called lottery, sponsored through his political action committee, was anything but a contest. Contrary to his own statements that each day leading up to the presidential election, someone would be “randomly” selected to win a life-changing cash prize, no random drawings took place.

Musk’s announced the sweepstakes this way:

“We really want to get as many people as possible to sign this petition, so I have a surprise for you. And it’s that we’ll be awarding $1 million dollars, randomly, to people who have signed the petition. Every day from now until the election.”

In fact, PAC officials prescreened people in a back room, ensuring entrants’ political fidelity to the MAGA message. Only acceptable contestants were allowed to proceed, and from that pre-screened group, officials hand-picked the content winners without even a drawing.

Compounding the fraud, selected “winners” were then paraded around as paid spokespersons for the MAGA cause at town hall events. Chris Young, America PAC’s director and treasurer, explained the subterfuge in court:

Q. Now, explain for the Court’s benefit how did AMERICA PAC figure out that these four individuals were going to become paid spokespersons for the PAC?

A. Sure. So once I made a determination, which, you know, states, locations, geography, we were going to have these town hall events. I went back to the petition and used the petition like a job application. These people had provided information. I was able to match and see which folks, one, were registered voters. Two, how many were actively referring others. If you went with one referral, or something like that, there was not much of – if there were five, then so — each of these people had multiple referrals and they were actively participating in the program.

From there, I then went through the process of looking at their social media, looking at their public posts. Each of those folks I met outside of a parking lot. They were standing in line before the town hall to make sure I could feel out their personality, make sure they were personal, they would fit that role well. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be interested in hiring them as a spokesperson for the organization for the petition.

The class action lawsuit seeks money damages as well as a full accounting—and destruction—of the personal information Musk and his PAC obtained under false pretenses.  The group of victims Sommers Schwartz represents in the suit reside in Michigan and other states.