Elon Musk settles lawsuits over $1 million voter giveaway

Elon Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, have agreed to settle two proposed class actions that accused them of misleading voters with a $1 million-a-day giveaway in the final weeks of the 2024 U.S. presidential race.

The agreement was disclosed in a court filing on Thursday, Oct. 15, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas in Austin. The filing did not include the terms, and the settlements still need a judge's approval. The parties asked the court for a 30-day pause in the cases so they can finalize the deals and file for preliminary approval.

Musk, the world's richest person and the head of Tesla and SpaceX, has denied the allegations. Lawyers on both sides declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

The giveaway and the claims

Musk set up America PAC to back Donald Trump's 2024 campaign. In October that year, the group began offering $1 million a day to registered voters in seven battleground states who signed a petition supporting free speech and the right to bear arms, the First and Second Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Signers handed over their names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers.

Speaking at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 19, 2024, Musk said, "We're going to be awarding a million dollars randomly to people who have signed the petition every day."

The lawsuits were brought by two Arizona residents, Jacqueline McAferty and Joy Harvick. They alleged that the payouts were never random and that the 18 winners were picked in part because they might make good spokespeople for the PAC. McAferty said she would not have signed the petition or shared her personal details if she had known she had no real chance of winning. The suits also accused Musk and America PAC of profiting from the voter data they collected.

Musk and the PAC argued that the money was not a prize. They pointed to statements telling voters that recipients would be "selected to earn" the payments by acting as spokespeople, and said signers suffered no harm by sharing contact information.

That defense had surfaced before. At a hearing in Philadelphia on Nov. 4, 2024, America PAC lawyer Chris Gober told a state judge, "The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance." Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner had sued to stop the giveaway under Pennsylvania's lottery laws. Common Pleas Judge Angelo Foglietta allowed the payouts to continue through Election Day.

Rulings that kept the cases alive

U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, an Obama appointee, refused in August 2025 to throw out McAferty's lawsuit. He pointed to promotional statements that described the money as "awarded" and "won," and wrote that it was plausible voters relied on those words even if the defendants did not intend to run a lottery. He also said an expert on political data could testify about what the information was worth.

In June this year, U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Hightower ordered Musk to testify under oath in both cases. She recommended that the claim that voters were tricked into handing over personal information go forward, while a related breach-of-contract claim be dismissed. Hightower wrote that it remained an open question whether Musk acted recklessly when he described the payouts as random.

America PAC director Christopher Young said in a February deposition that he was "surprised" by Musk's choice of words.

If the court approves the deals, the cases will end without Musk facing a trial over the giveaway. Trump won all seven swing states targeted by the petition drive on his way back to the White House.