The “winners” of Elon Musk’s $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes are actually pre-selected “spokespeople” for America PAC, according to an attorney for the political action committee.
The lawyer, Chris Gober, was testifying in a civil case against Musk and his group America PAC filed by Philadelphia prosecutors seeking to stop the political action committee from “running an illegal lottery.”
Gober told Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta on Monday that the recipients of the money are chosen based on their personal stories and they sign a contract with the PAC.
“The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance,” Gober said, per NBC 5 DFW. “We know exactly who will be announced as the $1 million recipient today and tomorrow.”
The recipients are vetted in advance, to “feel out their personality, (and) make sure they were someone whose values aligned” with the group, Chris Young, the director of America PAC, testified in court.
This is at odds with what Musk said about the sweepstakes earlier at a Trump campaign event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, last month.
“We want to try to get over a million, maybe 2 million voters in the battleground states to sign the petition in support of the First and Second Amendment. … We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election,” Musk stated, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
In a social media post dated October 20, Musk tweeted that anyone signing the petition had “a daily chance of winning $1 million!”
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner called the sweepstakes a “scam” and asked the judge to shut it down, describing it as an illegal lottery under Pennsylvania law.
The lottery has no published rules or privacy policies to protect the information voters provide to register for the sweepstakes.
“They were scammed for their information,” Krasner testified in court. “It has almost unlimited use.”
“This was all a political marketing masquerading as a lottery,” Krasner said in court. “That’s what it is. A grift.”
America PAC confirmed that it had no plans to continue the lottery beyond Election Day, which is Tuesday.
More than seven million voters from seven swing states, including Pennsylvania, registered for the lottery by signing a petition stating that they support the right to free speech and the right to bear arms. To be eligible for the sweepstakes, participants had to be registered voters and were required to release personal information, including their phone numbers and addresses.
Monday afternoon, Judge Foglietta ruled that the voter sweepstakes could continue through Tuesday, but he did not give a reason for his ruling.
Krasner indicated that he may still consider filing criminal charges against Musk and the PAC for violating Pennsylvania’s lottery laws.