\n<\/p>\n
MADISON, Wis. — <\/span>Billionaire\u00a0Elon Musk\u00a0likely broke Wisconsin law when he promised to hand out\u00a0$1 million checks\u00a0to voters in the 2025 state Supreme Court election, a bipartisan panel has found.<\/p>\n The Wisconsin Elections Commission last week referred two complaints to the Brown County district attorney’s office, which can choose to bring criminal charges over violating the state law against election bribery. Prosecutors have 40 days to report back to the commission.<\/p>\n Musk, the\u00a0founder of SpaceX\u00a0and CEO of Tesla, was\u00a0deeply involved\u00a0in the effort to flip majority control of the highest court in battleground Wisconsin.<\/p>\n The tech titan and groups he supported spent at least $20 million on the candidate backed by Republicans, Brad Schimel. However, he lost by 10 percentage points to Democratic-backed candidate Susan Crawford.<\/p>\n A month after the lopsided loss, Musk announced that he would be\u00a0spending far less\u00a0on political campaigns. Spending on the election topped $100 million, making it the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.<\/p>\n The complaints, which are confidential under state law, were brought by voters in Milwaukee and Green Bay, which is in Brown County. Musk handed out checks at a rally there just days before the election.<\/p>\n The Wisconsin Elections Commission, consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans, voted 5-1 in closed session on Thursday to refer the complaints to the district attorney, the commission’s spokesperson Emilee Miklas said.<\/p>\n Brown County District Attorney David Lasee, a Republican, did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday.<\/p>\n The motion approved by the elections commission said it found probable cause that Musk broke Wisconsin law by making a social media post offering $1 million to people who voted in the Supreme Court election \u201cin order to induce them to vote in that election.\u201d<\/p>\n Spokespeople for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n Three Wisconsin voters received checks from Musk, including two who got them in person at the Green Bay rally. Two weeks before the election, Musk\u2019s political action committee, America PAC,\u00a0offered $100 to voters\u00a0who signed a petition in opposition to \u201cactivist judges,\u201d or referred someone to sign it.<\/p>\n Crawford’s win kept liberals in control of the state Supreme Court, and their majority grew to 5-2 after Democratic-backed candidate Chris Taylor’s\u00a0victory this year.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s spending on the 2025 race has already resulted in\u00a0one lawsuit\u00a0filed by a government watchdog group, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which seeks to prohibit him from ever again offering cash payments in the state.<\/p>\n That lawsuit is pending in Brown County. It alleges that Musk and two groups he funds violated prohibitions on vote bribery and unauthorized lotteries and that his actions were an unlawful conspiracy and public nuisance.<\/p>\n Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general sued to stop Musk\u00a0from handing over the checks\u00a0to two voters, but was rejected by state courts.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s attorneys argued in legal filings in 2025 that Musk was exercising his free speech rights with the giveaways and any attempt to restrict that would violate both the Wisconsin and U.S. constitutions.<\/p>\n The payments are \u201cintended to generate a grassroots movement in opposition to activist judges, not to expressly advocate for or against any candidate,\u201d Musk\u2019s attorneys argued in court filings.<\/p>\n Musk\u2019s political action committee used\u00a0a nearly identical tactic\u00a0before the 2024 presidential election,\u00a0offering to pay\u00a0$1 million a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states who signed a petition supporting the First and Second amendments. A judge in Pennsylvania said prosecutors\u00a0failed to show\u00a0the effort was an illegal lottery and allowed it to continue through Election Day.<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" MADISON, Wis. — Billionaire\u00a0Elon Musk\u00a0likely broke Wisconsin law when he promised to hand out\u00a0$1 million checks\u00a0to voters in the 2025 state Supreme Court election, a bipartisan panel has found. The Wisconsin Elections Commission last week referred two complaints to the Brown County district attorney’s office, which can choose to bring criminal charges over violating the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11573],"tags":[26425,2787,1314,1061,26422,1806,1226,1062,9932,26426,26424,6755,10491,26423],"class_list":["post-36783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philadelphia-breaking-news","tag-26425","tag-board","tag-broke","tag-elon","tag-elon-musk-likely-broke-the-law-by-promising-voters-1-million-payouts","tag-law","tag-million","tag-musk","tag-payouts","tag-promising","tag-timely","tag-voters","tag-wisconsin","tag-wisconsin-board-says"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",0,0,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",0,0,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",0,0,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",150,150,false],"medium":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",300,300,false],"large":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",1024,1024,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",1536,1536,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",2048,2048,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",370,265,false],"kava-thumb-s":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",150,85,false],"kava-thumb-s-2":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",230,230,false],"kava-thumb-m":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",400,400,false],"kava-thumb-m-vertical":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",370,500,false],"kava-thumb-m-2":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",570,450,false],"kava-thumb-l":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",1170,650,false],"kava-thumb-xl":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",1920,1080,false],"kava-thumb-masonry":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",600,999,false],"kava-thumb-justify":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",640,640,false],"kava-thumb-justify-2":["https:\/\/cdn.abcotvs.com\/dip\/images\/19515680_AP26195672055311.jpg?w=1600",1280,640,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"#RiseCelestialStudios","author_link":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/author\/ralph-c\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Philadelphia Viral News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"MADISON, Wis. — Billionaire\u00a0Elon Musk\u00a0likely broke Wisconsin law when he promised to hand out\u00a0$1 million checks\u00a0to voters in the 2025 state Supreme Court election, a bipartisan panel has found. The Wisconsin Elections Commission last week referred two complaints to the Brown County district attorney’s office, which can choose to bring criminal charges over violating the…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36785,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36783\/revisions\/36785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Prosecutors will decide if Musk should be charged over the $1 million checks<\/h3>\n
Musk gave $1 million checks to 3 Wisconsin voters<\/h3>\n
Attempts to stop Musk failed in 2025<\/h3>\n