Elon Musk’s $1M voter giveaways were fixed lotteries, lawsuits sayElon Musk said recipients of his daily $1 million lottery would be selected randomly. Two lawsuits accuse America PAC of pre-selecting winners.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/11/06/elon-musk-trump-pac-lawsuits/
Robert Alvarez was sitting on his couch in his Michigan home last week when he heard that billionaire Elon Musk was giving away $1 million in a lottery each day to a swing-state voter.
The attorney didn’t share Musk’s support for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, but he signed a petition from Musk’s super PAC in hopes of winning. He imagined using the money to pay off his mortgage, finance his four children’s college tuition and vacation in Fiji.
But in a lawsuit he filed against Musk and America PAC on Tuesday, Alvarez said he never had a chance of winning.
America PAC, which Musk created to campaign for Trump, did not select winners by chance, but instead by vetting candidates’ social media presence for pro-GOP values, Alvarez’s lawsuit said.
His complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, was the second submitted against Musk and his super PAC on Tuesday. Arizona resident Jacqueline McAferty filed a class-action lawsuit with similar allegations in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. Her complaint estimates that more than 1 million people were duped.
The lawsuits represent the fallout of Musk’s lottery, which continued after the Justice Department warned Musk last month that the contest could be illegal under federal law. It’s unclear if the federal agency further probed the matter.
The filings also came a day after a state judge in Philadelphia declined to issue an injunction against America PAC following a lawsuit by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (D) that tried to block the lottery. While the decision might have been a victory for Musk, his attorneys said at the hearing that the winners are not chosen by chance and are paid spokespeople for America PAC, according to a court transcript.
“They used my signing up to inflate the support for their PAC, for their political views, and to drive traffic to X,” Alvarez, 47, told The Washington Post. “So definitely America PAC and Elon Musk gained a benefit from my signing of that petition, and they gave me nothing for that.”
Attorneys representing Musk and America PAC did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.
Musk announced Oct. 19 that he would distribute $1 million daily to a random voter in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin until Nov. 5, ultimately dishing out checks to more than a dozen winners. The money stemmed from the PAC he created in the spring to facilitate independent get-out-the-vote operations for Trump.
The petition stated that it sought to “get 1 million registered voters in swing states to sign in support of the Constitution, especially freedom of speech and the right to bear arms.” It asked people to enter personal information, including their addresses and phone numbers.
Alvarez, who lives in Kent County, Michigan, said he was concerned about sharing his personal information but felt the chance of winning $1 million outweighed the risks of his data being sold. After signing the petition in late October, Alvarez, who supported Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, said he checked his email daily to see if he had won.
On Oct. 28, Krasner sued Musk and his PAC, alleging that their contest violated Pennsylvania’s unfair trade practices. During a hearing Monday, a judge denied Krasner’s attempt to halt the lottery, but the PAC’s attorneys and leaders revealed more about how winners were chosen. One said PAC officials checked which folks who signed the petition were registered voters before vetting their social media accounts and meeting them in person to “feel out their personality,” according to a court transcript.
Alvarez said he was working at the law firm he co-founded Monday when he saw posts on X about the hearing. The next day, Alvarez said he wrote his complaint — which he filed himself — alleging that Musk and PAC America committed fraud and breached a contract.
McAferty, who lives in Maricopa County, Arizona, made the same allegations in her lawsuit, which said she never would have signed the petition if she had known more about the criteria. Her lawsuit asks Musk and America PAC to destroy her personal information.
“Her signature/support, as well as her [personal information] were given as valuable consideration for a chance to receive the $1,000,000,” her lawsuit says.
Alvarez, who said he plans to amend his complaint into a class action, is asking for damages. While Musk said early Wednesday that he would continue to be involved in politics during Trump’s presidency, Alvarez said he felt confident his lawsuit would be a winner.
“What I’m going to ask the jury is: How much is your personal information worth to you?” Alvarez said. “To me, on that night, when I signed up, it was worth $1 million — at least.”
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