Courts

Musk's Henchmen Testify There Was No Illegal Lottery, Just Good Old Fraud

Peanut the squirrel would be so disappointed.

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Milken Institute’s Global Conference Held In Beverly Hills

(Photo by Apu Gomes/Getty Images)

On October 19, Elon Musk announced to a crowd in Harrisburg that he had a “surprise” for them. In addition to a $47 “payment” for referring the name of a registered voter to his pro-Trump America PAC, he’d be giving away $1 million to one signer per day through November 5.

“We are going to be awarding a million dollars randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day from now until the election,” he vamped, adding later that the only “ask” was that recipients be good spokespeople for the PAC.

That turned out to be less than 100 percent true, as became immediately apparent when the “winners” just so happened to be present at Pennsylvania rallies to collect their prizes later that week. But in case there was any doubt, Musk’s lawyer Chris Gober confirmed it this morning in a hearing before Judge Angelo Foglietta of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on the civil complaint seeking to enjoin Musk from continuing to operate an illegal lottery.

“There is no prize to be won, instead recipients must fulfill contractual obligations to serve as a spokesperson for the PAC,” Gober protested, seemingly defending his client from charges that he was running an illegal lottery by admitting that he was engaged in fraud.

“The opportunity to earn is different from the chance to win,” Musk’s consigliere Chris Young told the court.

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According to the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Gober acknowledged that Musk used the word “randomly” in his speech. But he said that was not meant to suggest that winners’ names would be drawn from a blind pool, as occurs in a lottery or other game of chance — but that the method for choosing winners would be random because it wasn’t going to follow any pre-determined pattern or criteria.

“We just heard this guy say, my boss, my client, called this random,” gaped John Summers, the lawyer representing Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. “We promised people that they were going to participate in a random process, but it’s a process where we pre-select people.”

This would appear to confirm the DA’s argument in his complaint that, if Musk wasn’t running an illegal lottery, he was violating Pennsylvania’s consumer protection statute:

To be clear, it would be no defense for America PAC and Musk to argue that it was not engaging in a lottery if their scheme actually did not involve a chance or random selection of winners. In that event, (a) they would be admitting to acting deceptively and in violation of the Commonwealth’s consumer protection law; and (b) they would still be in violation of the Commonwealth’s prohibition against the operation of unlawful lotteries.

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And indeed the petition itself seems to have gone through several revisions in an attempt to square with the mad king’s demands with the provisions of state law. In its current iteration, it refers to the recipients as “earning” their checks and requires them to provide “a signed IRS W-9 so an IRS 1099 can be issued.”

But as Krasner noted when he took the stand, “That doesn’t sound like a spokesperson contract.”

The hearing was highly contentious, with Summers calling Musk’s lawyers “fraudulent shysters” at one point, only withdrawing the “shysters” after being reprimanded by the judge.

As of this writing, Judge Foglietta had not yet ruled. And for the purposes of the injunction, any order is functionally moot. This is the final day before the election, and Musk’s people have said that the only remaining “earner” will be from Michigan, not Pennsylvania. But to the extent that Musk’s henchmen dropped him in the criminal soup, forced to admit to actual crimes on the witness stand after the billionaire refused to show up, the fun may be just beginning.

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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