Wisconsin district attorney declines to charge Musk over $1M voter giveaway

A Wisconsin state prosecutor declined to charge technology billionaire Elon Musk with election bribery for his $1 million check handouts to voters during the state's Supreme Court election last year. In a letter shared Tuesday with The Hill, La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke (D) said his office decided against pressing charges since, in the end, "nobody was paid anything of value for voting or promising to vote." Musk, the CEO and founder of Tesla and SpaceX, initially announced in March 2025 that he would speak in Wisconsin, with entrance limited to those who had voted in the state's Supreme Court election. Musk said on his social platform X he would "personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote." About 12 hours later, the post was deleted and replaced with another clarifying entrance was limited to those who signed the petition against "activist judges." He said the money would be given to "spokesmen" for the petition. Musk went on to hand out two checks during a campaign rally in Wisconsin. Gruenke argued the first post could be seen as an offer to pay someone "the possibility of winning a lottery at a town hall by voting," but could also be seen as giving entry to a free town hall, with the money a "pre-determined payment for people selected as 'spokesman' rather than a reward for voting." "Under either view, the second post apparently recognized that potential violation and corrected it," Gruenke …