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Elon Musk is expanding pro-Trump efforts with cash and belligerence
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Elon Musk is expanding pro-Trump efforts with cash and belligerence

Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk has stepped up his efforts to help re-elect former President Donald Trump, raising eyebrows in the political world and raising questions about the legality of some of his tactics.

Musk hit the road last week and over the weekend to help mobilize support for the Republican candidate — an endeavor newsworthy in itself, but even more so because of the things he’s done along the way. Musk on Thursday advanced a debunked conspiracy theory about election fraud and announced he would give away $100 to every registered voter in Pennsylvania who signed a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution.

Two days later, Musk alarmed some officials and legal experts when he rolled out a lottery-style giveaway of $1 million for people in Pennsylvania who signed the petition.

Meanwhile, news reports have detailed some of the problems facing America PAC, a political action committee funded by Musk to boost Trump in the latter part of the campaign. Musk has given nearly $75 million to the PAC, according to a Federal Election Commission filing — a sum that catapults the SpaceX and Tesla founder to the top of the GOP donor circuit.

Reuters, citing anonymous sources involved in the committee’s work, reported that the PAC is having difficulty gaining door knocks in some swing states and is investigating claims that some voters have lied about the number of voters they contacted.

The Guardian reported that roughly a quarter of the PAC’s door knocks in the crucial swing states of Arizona and Nevada were flagged as potentially fraudulent by a recruitment app used by the committee, according to leaked data and sources familiar with the matter.

NBC News has not independently verified either report. The committee and the app mentioned in the Guardian report did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

Musk has established himself as one of Trump’s most high-profile and vocal supporters, saying the race will decide “the fate of Western civilization” and constantly advocating for the former president on X, the social media platform he owns.

Trump has welcomed Musk’s support. The two men met earlier this month in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the former president survived an assassination attempt last summer. Musk, who jumped on stage wearing a black “Make America Great Again” hat, described himself to the audience as “not just MAGA, I’m dark MAGA.”

In appearances and online, Musk has made inflammatory statements about immigration and embraced controversial claims about widespread voter fraud.

In a post to X on Saturday, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson accused him of “spreading dangerous disinformation.” Musk fired back: “Shame on you for blatantly lying to the public!” (Research and academic studies have found no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the US)

Musk’s campaign sprint kicked off Thursday with a town hall at a high school in Folsom, Pennsylvania, a state both campaigns see as a must-win. The world’s richest man, wearing a yellow cap and standing in front of an American flag, promoted the discredited theory that Dominion Voting Systems was part of a plot to rig American elections.

“If you have mail-in ballots and no proof of citizenship, it’s almost impossible to prove fraud,” Musk said, responding to an audience member’s question about alleged election fraud.

“Statistically, there are some very strange things happening that are statistically incredibly unlikely. There is always talk of the Dominion voting machines, for example. It’s weird that I think they were used in Philadelphia and Maricopa County (in Arizona), but not many other places. Doesn’t that seem quite coincidental?”

Dominion has repeatedly rejected claims that it was involved in efforts to rig elections. In a statement last week, a company spokesperson disputed Musk’s comments.

“Fact: Dominion does not serve Philadelphia County. Fact: Dominion’s voting systems are already based on voter-verified paper ballots. Fact: Hand counts and audits of such paper ballots have repeatedly proven that Dominion machines produce accurate results. These are not matters of opinion. These are verifiable facts,” the spokesperson said in an email.

Musk’s storms continued Saturday with a town hall event in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he announced that his PAC would award $1 million daily to a “random” registered voter who signs a petition in support of the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution.

He’s already handed out two checks.

The giveaway plan was met with immediate opposition from some election law experts. Rick Hasen, a law professor at UCLA and an election law analyst for NBC News, wrote in a post on his website Saturday that the payments were “clearly illegal.”

“What you’re essentially doing is you’re creating a lottery. You’re creating a lottery where the only people eligible to participate in the lottery are people who register to vote, or are registered to vote, and that’s illegal,” Hasen told NBC News on Sunday.

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat and surrogate for Vice President Kamala Harris, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Musk’s plan was “very concerning” and “something law enforcement could look into.”

It was not clear whether federal officials are investigating the payments. In an email, a spokeswoman for the Federal Election Commission declined to comment on “specific activities” and “potential enforcement issues that may come before the agency.”

Trump isn’t the only presidential candidate backed by a famous mogul. Harris is backed by billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, who has spoken at Democratic campaign events and advocated the Democratic candidate’s policies in interviews.

Musk has mocked Cuban on X. In a post last week, Cuban shot back with some words of his own: “You can’t stop thinking about me @elonmusk Can you? It’s okay. I understand. If I supported a candidate who was so incompetent that I had to take over and fund their ground game, I would also look for a distraction.”