accused of fraud<\/a> after it turned out the \u201cwinners\u201d in the voter lottery were not randomly selected, as he claimed they would be.<\/p>\nThe two potential class-action lawsuits allege voters were induced by Musk and his political action committee to provide their personal information under fraudulent pretenses. Instead of being entered in a drawing for the chance to win $1 million as Musk promised, Joy Harvick and Jacqueline McAferty, both of Arizona, say they had no chance of winning.<\/p>\n
The cases stem from a program Musk announced in October 2024 at a Pennsylvania town hall, saying those who signed a pledge and provided contact information could be randomly selected to win.<\/p>\n
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\u201cWe\u2019re going to be awarding a million dollars to\u00a0\u2014 randomly\u00a0\u2014 to people who have signed the petition, every day from now until the election,\u201d Musk told the crowd and later posted on X.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"SpaceX]()
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SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk awards Kristine Fishell with a $1 million check during an October town hall\u00a0in Pittsburgh, Pa. Musk has donated more than $75 million to America PAC, which he co-founded with fellow Silicon Valley venture capitalists and tech businessmen to support then-Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n
Photo by Michael Swensen\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
But the 18 people handed $1 million each weren\u2019t picked at random. Rather, they were selected because they\u2019d be good spokespeople for the conservative political action committee. In a February deposition, America PAC Director Chris Young said the giveaway was \u201cno sweepstakes\u201d and had \u201cno winners.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, attorneys for Musk and America PAC argue they weren\u2019t promising a random drawing, but instead the opportunity for registered entrants to earn the money if selected as spokespeople for the PAC.<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s attorneys unsuccessfully argued to keep him out of the proceedings. They said attorneys for\u00a0Harvick and McAferty failed to request the deposition before discovery deadlines and that Musk did not have information that would be useful, as he was not a leader of America PAC, just a celebrity spokesperson and donor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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In some instances, Musk\u2019s attorneys were arguing against what he has already stated in court filings in which the Texas tech mogul said he helped found America PAC, helped form its mission and was its chief funder.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe fail to see how the testimony of Mr. Musk would lead to general disputes of material fact,\u201d\u00a0Nadin Linthorst, an attorney defending Musk\u00a0in the\u00a0McAferty case, said in court.<\/p>\n
The judge, though, pointed out that his name also appeared as the signer on some of the large novelty checks used in the alleged giveaway. And, given Musk\u2019s responses in documents that he helped form the group, she said there is a likelihood he holds unique information the plaintiffs could get nowhere else.<\/p>\n
Defense attorneys were also ordered to reproduce hundreds of pages of documents that were already turned over but were so heavily redacted as to be unclear. Hightower said local rules largely disallow redacting documents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The hearing also established new scheduling deadlines, which are needed because arguments over discovery have delayed several already agreed-upon dates. It wasn\u2019t immediately clear when Musk will sit for a deposition.<\/p>\n
Hightower also heard arguments from Musk\u2019s attorneys regarding summary judgment in the McAferty case. They argued there was no fraud as there was no real agreement and that she suffered no damages because the information she gave was of no value. Musk attorney\u00a0Nadin Rabelo Linthorst\u00a0compared the personal data\u00a0McAferty gave\u00a0to the type of information gained by signing up for a newsletter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McAferty attorney\u00a0Jarett Ellzey, though, argued a $47 incentive offered to some for registering and referring people to America PAC was enough to establish the information had value.<\/p>\n
Linthorst also argued the case against Musk should be dismissed because he was merely a spokesperson and a donor.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Hightower declined to rule on the summary judgment Tuesday, taking the motions under advisement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A motion for summary judgment in Harvick\u2019s case will be decided by\u00a0Judge Robert Pitman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"File: Elon Musk arrives in March for a Twitter shareholder trial at the U.S. District Court for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,5454],"class_list":["post-349348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-saen_share"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}