Judge Throws Out Vote Payment Allegations Against Elon Musk

SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk participates in a town hall-style meeting at Ridley High School in Folsom, Pa., on Oct. 17, 2024. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

A federal judge has turned away allegations that billionaire Elon Musk violated the law when he started giving $1 million away to registered voters.

California resident Aaron Greenspan in a lawsuit filed over the summer accused Musk of violating state laws and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act. In a recent emergency motion, Greenspan, who founded the company PlainSite, said Musk’s newly announced million-dollar giveaways to voters in swing states violated federal law that prohibits paying or offering to pay people to either register to vote or vote.

Greenspan said that Musk, who has endorsed former President Donald Trump, should not be “permitted to continually violate federal law and swing the election.” He asked the court to order Musk to stop violating the law.

U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney on Oct. 22 denied the motion.

She pointed to a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that concluded there must be a relationship between an injury claimed in a motion for injunctive relief and the conduct asserted in the underlying lawsuit.

“Here, the injury claimed is unrelated to the conduct alleged in the complaint and the relief sought therein,” Chesney said.

Musk’s lawyers noted that the giveaways were only open to people who signed a petition in favor of free speech and the right to bear arms and that the petition itself says it is only open to registered voters in swing states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“Plaintiff’s motion fails for numerous reasons, including that Plaintiff has no standing, the requested relief bears no relationship to Plaintiff’s complaint, and Plaintiff fails to meet his burden to establish a private right of action under Section 10307(c),” the lawyers said. “Even if the Court were inclined to consider the merits, Plaintiff does not establish any of the elements required to obtain emergency relief. He fails to show he is likely to prevail on his claims; he does not establish a likelihood of imminent, particularized harm; and, rather than show that the balance of equities and public interest favor his position, he seeks a prohibited prior restraint on Musk’s political speech, including through a vague demand to enjoin ‘interfering with the voting preferences of any individual.’”

Musk’s political action committee on Thursday gave away $1 million to a Wisconsin man, and $1 million more to a Michigan man.