Elon Musk is paying people to collect petition signatures and offering free event admission to Pennsylvania residents who have voted. Do his actions violate federal law? Veuer’s Matt Hoffman reports.
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00:00Elon Musk isn't paying for votes, but he's getting as close as he possibly can.
00:04In the past few months, the billionaire CEO has been a vocal supporter of former President Trump.
00:09And earlier this month, he announced that his political action committee would pay people
00:13$47 for every swing state voter they got to sign the PAC's petition supporting free speech
00:18and the right to bear arms. On Thursday, he upped the reward to $100 per voter in
00:23Pennsylvania specifically. Is this legal? Seemingly, yes. Campaign finance lawyer
00:28Brendan Fisher told the New York Times, ultimately, what America PAC is doing here
00:32is spending money for voter data, which PACs and campaigns do all the time.
00:37But there's another wrinkle that could be more problematic. This week, Musk also announced that
00:41he'd be giving a series of talks in Pennsylvania with no admission charge, but open only to people
00:46who signed the petition and have voted in that state. Writing in Slate, legal scholar Richard
00:51L. Hassan argued that offering free admission as a reward for voting could be a violation of
00:55federal law against buying votes. Whether Musk will face legal consequences for this remains
01:00to be seen, but his actions are a sign of how hotly contested the state of Pennsylvania is
01:05this presidential cycle.