As the political wheel turned, the 2016 presidential win by Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton sparked whispers of potential meddling. Indeed, the conspiracy furor gained more ground after Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, with outlandish claims of systemic cheating circulating, courtesy of the objectionably muddled judgment of the then-head of state. This wave of unfounded allegations would later ignite the flame of the January 6 storming and earn him a dazzling array of nearly 90 criminal accusations. Fast forward to the 2024 face-off between Trump and then-Vice President Kamala Harris and you can’t help but spot the deep-seated bias in Harris’s narrative around election rigging possibilities.
Despite the rallying cries of Harris’s campaign and Trump’s laundry list of 34 felony convictions, the scale tipped once again in favor of Trump. It didn’t take long, within months of Trump’s latest win, for a Wisconsin nonprofit to unleash a formal legal complaint at Musk and his political partners, placing a spotlight on allegations of election manipulation for the 2024 bid. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, alongside two partly-involved voters, accuses Musk, his American PAC, and another Musk-friendly organization, United States of America Inc., of blatantly infringing upon state election law. Their reported ‘bribery plan to sway Wisconsin voters’ didn’t sit well.
These claims are rooted in Musk’s movement in the lead-up to Wisconsin’s 2024 Supreme Court election. As argued by the plaintiffs, Musk was handing over one-million-dollar checks, while his PAC handed out $100 in cash rewards for voters who supported their petitions. They condemn these actions as not only crossing the allocated $1 worth of ‘value’ stipulated by the Wisconsin electoral law to coax someone into voting but also flagrantly infringing on the state’s ban on unauthorized lottery-type initiatives.
Josh Kaul, Wisconsin’s Attorney General, flung a lawsuit at Musk and the America PAC before the $1 million benefaction function, on the grounds of bribe-like violation. Hopes of nipping the event in the bud legally were dashed, with a county judge refusing to step in, an appeals court warding off further moves, and the Supreme Court of the state not opting to review the case.
Trump’s 2024 triumph was met with wary scepticism, especially given his cryptic remarks which muddled the waters surrounding election integrity even more. In a post-vote event, Trump playfully tip his hat to Musk’s technological prowess, attributing his victory in a crucial swing state to it. ‘He’s masterful with those computers. All those vote-counting machines, he just gets them,’ he praised, adding, ‘We won Pennsylvania by a landslide. That makes us look good – very good. A big thanks to Elon.’
Musk’s generous gestures weren’t confined to Wisconsin alone. He repeated similar dollar rain in other battleground states during the coarse of 2024 elections. For instance, voters in Pennsylvania were promised a daily $1 million lottery by Musk for endorsing his PAC’s petition campaign, with referrers pocketing $47 each time someone signed up.
Despite an attempt by Pennsylvania attorneys to halt the initiative, a judge overruled, claiming that the case for illegal lottery wasn’t convincingly built, thus the campaign could carry on through Election Day. The latest Wisconsin grievance aims to clamp down on Musk and his cohorts’ eligibilities to utilize these ‘creative’ methods in upcoming elections.
However, Musk has hinted towards tame political spendings in the future, leaving room for speculation about forthcoming commitments. His departure from the Trump administration last month doesn’t make imminent recurrence likely.
The equation between Musk and the other Trump-supporting Republicans has grown complicated, to put it mildly. Recently, Musk spoke about the formation of a new political outfit while blaming law-makers for abandoning voters by supporting Trump’s legislative goals. He has effectively estranged himself from the establishment.
Meanwhile, events in regions such as Rockland County, New York, a bastion for Democrats where they secured several races comfortably but saw Harris receive almost no votes, has opened up another box of troubling questions. The lack of votes for Harris feeds further into misgivings around the credibility of Trump’s 2024 victory and the extent of possible foul play involved, particularly in swing states.