Elon Musk is allowed to continue his Trump lottery – because the lottery was never drawn

Elon Musk’s campaign made headlines – and was designed exactly for that: To support Donald Trump, he would raffle off a million dollars every day until the election, the multi-billionaire promised. Now a judge has allowed him to continue with it. Musk’s argument in court was adventurous.

The judge’s decision was made on Monday in Pennsylvania. The state is hotly contested as a swing state in the presidential race and could ultimately decide the US election. But the lottery will have no influence on this, Musk’s lawyer Chris Gober promised during the hearing on Monday: “The million dollars will not be raffled off at random,” he declared unabashedly. “We know exactly who will be announced as the winner today and tomorrow.” Ultimately, the money is not profit, but rather payment for the PR faces of the election campaign.

The argument is intended to undermine the accusation. Prosecutor Larry Krasner argued that the distribution of the money would manipulate the election in Pennsylvania. The next two winners are in Arizona and Michigan, said Gober. And that means Pennsylvania is not responsible. The judge ultimately ruled in Musk’s favor. It is not yet publicly known whether the admission played a role.

Prosecutor Krasner appeared stunned. “This is all political marketing disguised as a lottery,” he complained in the meeting. “That’s all. It’s a scam.”

With Musk it sounded completely different. “We will be giving away $1 million at random every day until the election to people who sign the petition”; Musk announced at a Trump campaign event on October 19th. In an October 20 X post, Musk reiterated that it was a “chance” to win the amount. The petition mentioned is clearly aimed at conservative voters with demands for freedom of expression and gun rights.

In fact, the “winners” seem to have been selected much more specifically. She was extensively vetted to “assess her personality and make sure that this is someone whose political values ​​align with ours,” Chris Young, treasurer and chairman of Musk’s campaign organization America PAC, said on Monday. When asked why Musk spoke of “random” voters, he sheepishly explained: “I wouldn’t have chosen that word.” The “winners” also had to sign confidentiality agreements.

According to the public prosecutor, it was not clear whether money actually flowed. “He handed over the checks, but only these huge cardboard checks,” said John Summers, a Krasner aide, about Elon Musk’s role in the campaign organization he founded. “But we don’t know whether there were actually real checks.”