A Pennsylvania judge ruled Monday that Elon Musk’s daily $1 million giveaway to voters can continue, in a victory for the tech billionaire and Donald Trump ally.
Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Angelo Foglietta rejected arguments from the city’s district attorney, Larry Krasner, who argued that the sweepstakes was an illegal lottery violating state law and must be halted immediately.
The ruling came shortly after an all-day hearing in a packed courtroom in downtown Philadelphia. The hearing was heated at times, with Krasner’s team calling Musk’s political team “shysters” who are running a “scam” and “grift” – and Musk’s team accusing the district attorney of pursuing a “dreadful violation of constitutional rights.”
The judge’s ruling was on Krasner’s emergency motion to shut down the sweepstakes right away. There is still an underlying case on the merits of whether Musk’s giveaway is illegal under state gaming law.
Just to be clear, this wasn’t the judge ruling that it was legal, it was the judge deciding not to issue an emergency order immediately halting the lottery. I’m honestly not surprised given the fact that there is only a day left and the damage is already done.
“Our intent all along is to only provide compensation to registered voters and US citizens, and avoid any chance that we are somehow providing funds to foreign nationals or someone with ill-intent,” Young said.
Young, the super PAC’s treasurer, said the group received plenty of sign-ups from people who weren’t registered to vote – and those people “received a follow-up opportunity and were encouraged to check their registration status,” Young testified.
If there was any doubt that they were using this to get people to register to vote, this added detail should make it pretty clear. They were telling people who weren’t registered to register in order to get paid / enter a lottery.
Damn, the crime was already committed. I guess there’s no use in worrying about it now…
If there was any doubt that they were using this to get people to register to vote, this added detail should make it pretty clear. They were telling people who weren’t registered to register in order to get paid / enter a lottery.
Which is super illegal, so they just admitted it in court. They don’t care though because if it works they just get the carrot to pardon them.
Election interference
Fuck you, CNN. His “giveaway” can continue… That’s not what it was being called yesterday.
Headline should speak to how his LOTTERY CANNOT continue, because it was never an actual lottery as advertised and was instead an active and intentional wide scale fraud of millions upon millions of American entrants.
Removed by mod
Even that won’t stop it. This didn’t start with trump, and it won’t end with trump. When the first Nazi coup attempt happened on us soil. Trump wasn’t even born.
We are so, so lucky that they made the stupid choice of thinking Smedley Butler would betray his own country.
But unlucky that FDR thought it better to blackmail fascists for a short term political gains. Ultimately obscuring the extent of what happened and who was involved. Leaving the fascism to simmer for 100 years. He should have tried and hung each and every businessman and Republican involved.
Agreed, but I’ll take that huge silver lining.
The only problem with that is. The fascist Republicans have largely and effectively mined out that silver vein over the last 100 years. It does still exist at least. And it’s definitely far better than a kick in the teeth. But as someone eligible for it in roughly 15 years. It’s not going to count for much. People already on it are falling back into poverty and struggling to survive as is. Plus they’re getting ready to cut payments not increase. Possibly even canceling outright for many should Trump and Republicans win office again. That’s why it’s a short-term Victory realistically speaking.
Should have publicly shot them and said “Hey we aren’t Germany, we have means to help those Fascism corrupts.”
After long-ass prison sentences?
No. Immediately, Nuremberg style.
Can someone please eli5 me why this legal? This is truly above my pay grade apparently
Heard he doesn’t give the money away as a lottery, but to pre-selected people, who plays “the random voter” guy.
But what a shit show regardless.
Oh so it’s not campaign violations, it’s just regular fraud.
It’s still the same violation as originally brought before the court. Offering anything of value to someone for being registered to vote, explicitly including lottery entries, is illegal. That is what happened.
Lying about it being a lottery is an additional crime.
Yes, but he is no mere mortal. He is the richest mortal, thus the law does not bind him.
deleted by creator
Then why is the judge letting it continue?
$$$
And they prove that they aren’t just lying to the public by making them think it’s a lottery they actually have a chance in, right? Right??
Yeah right… So as usual muskrat gets to have his cake and eat it too.
It clearly is illegal, but the judge is allowing it anyway. Most likely because they are extremely corrupt.
He’s rich.
It all started with the Powell memo, which set off a movement to legalise corruption in the US.
Somebody check that judge’s finances!
It’s not necessarily legal.
The judge hasn’t ruled yet on whether Musk broke the law. He simply declined to issue a preliminary injunction.
A preliminary injunction tells someone to stop what they are doing while the court case plays out. In order to get a preliminary injunction, you have to convince a judge that there will be irreparable harm by letting someone continue.
In other words, a judge might rule against an injunction but nevertheless end up ruling against the defendant. Especially if the judge thinks the harm has already been done.
I believe you dropped an important “not”
That is some buuuulllllshit.
So electoral bribery is legal now, huh?
God bless America. Sigh.
FWIW, I think this injunction was not about election integrity, but gambling laws.
But yeah, bribery is legal if you have that third comma in your net worth.
Third comma? It’s a lot cheaper to bribe a US politician than that. Many will vote in your favor for a few thousand dollars in campaign contributions.
Yeah, but if you get caught with a paper trail and only one comma, nobody’s gonna jump to your defense.
🌎👨🚀🔫👨🚀 “Always has been”
Maybe always tolerated. Now it’s official.
Citizens United made it legal, nothing new in the country where Trump has a shot to win again.
Only if you’re a billionaire, since the law doesn’t apply to them.
Probably time judges face consequences for their shit rulings and making a farce of the justice system
guillotine?
public disembowelment
Call me a hippy but I’ve always had a problem with the very concept of a judge. As in, someone who gets paid (royally!) just to, well judge people. As we all know the law is anything but impartial, so my take was always that, say, the “wrong” type of people gravitate towards these posts. Keep this up for a few decades and you have a thorougly corrupt legal system (not remotely resembling a “justice” system).
It’s not as if I have any workable alternatives, but still the very concept feels wrong to me somehow.
You are just describing the Federalist Society.
The problem is that a judge, by virtue of being human, is incapable of impartiality.
If there were some sort of computer code that turned the legal system into a hard science that would be amazing, but I doubt that’s even possible.
The problem is the computer code needs to be coded by a human, so it is just as fallible to biases and manipulation
No! I don’t want a computer making the decisions!
A judge can be merciful. A judge can have empathy and understanding.
By virtue of being a human being, a judge can understand what it means to be human.
Although the current state of the Supreme Court is demoralizing, it should be noted judges get second-guessed all the time through the appeal process.
I see the judicial system as one of those things that may be terrible, but is still better than every alternative, much like democracy.
If you want to replace people with computers, start with the CEOs and work down from there.
Not until we get The Three Magi.
Everyone and everything can be corrupted. Your train of thought that the “wrong” type of people gravitate towards these posts is taking a biased approach. It’s closer to reality to say that the vested interest in corrupting these positions will always be a strong contestant to the rule of fair and unbiased law.
No legal system can unflinchingly endure the internal and external manipulations seeking to exploit it because regardless of how much we intend its fairness, we ourselves are unfair and malleable - intentionally or not.
And a lot of judges run for office. You have to act tough to get reelected, which means “tough on crime”.
Judges are a heavily flawed attempt on impartiality when poor people do crimes for different reasons than the state and rich commit them.
A rich man will never loiter, a poor person might have to. A state can declare war and pardon its commanders even with rape and murder illegal for everyone else.
Phew! It’s a Good Thing he’s only offering $1MILLION! If he was offering something like Water THEN we’d have an issue!
Totally not corrupting the voting here with money, nothing to see here.
The US truely is effed
Yep. Democracy has left the building.
But in GA you can’t bring water to people waiting in line to vote. Ok.
What does this article have to do with being in line to vote?
Doesn’t it seem strange that giving someone waiting to vote a bottle of water is a crime, but giving them money isn’t?
Do you really not see how they’re related?
Yeah, I understand that.
However, I don’t think that this ever required anyone to actually vote and the people aren’t random when picked. Hell, they even argue that the money is actually payment for the “winner” to speak publicly. Is it all a load of crap? Maybe,… I’ve never trusted a billionaire for anything.
You disingenuous coward. You think people are stupid enough to not see through the facade of an apologist posts like yours?
You’re one of those “temporarily embarrassed millionaires”, huh?
Cool story, bro.
“I told’em Mr. elon, sir, really I did, they just weren’t appreciative of you, Mr. Sir, but I told 'em all the truth, because we’re the same you and I. I knew we’d be together one day and you’d be so proud of me”
Guess that judge was one of the “winners”
Crucial context, the reason for the legality:
“The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance,” Gober said Monday. “We know exactly who will be announced as the $1 million recipient today and tomorrow.”
I checked the wording and it appears it never said the choice was going to be random! Devious.In announcing the giveaway, Musk said: “We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition,” referring to his petition in support of the Constitution.
struck, thanks. It’s false advertising then.
Which is civil rather than criminal.
I wonder if people that participated in this lottery will start filing suit.
Yeah so they randomly choose people, then pick from those people to announce later on and boom no longer random because loophole…
We really are the land of shitheads jumping through loopholes…
This ruling is just on the emergency order to shut down the lottery which would end tomorrow anyway because tomorrow is election day.
There is still a criminal case proceeding.
