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 wrote.

“Even if I could convince a jury that the original post was still a bribe, I do not believe that a jury would convict Elon Musk of a crime after considering the intent, the second post, and the fact nothing of value was ever given to anyone for voting for an incident occurring in March of 2025,” he added.

Gruenke’s decision comes about a month after the bipartisan elections panel voted 5-1 to refer two complaints against Musk to the Brown County, Wis., district attorney’s office. The panel, which has three Democrats and three Republicans, found probable cause that the giveaways violated the state’s election bribery law.

Gruenke was appointed as a special prosecutor because of a conflict of interest.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) sued Musk over the giveaway later that month. The lower court declined to block the giveaways as an illegal bribe to voters, prompting Kaul to ask the state’s top court to stop the check handouts.

But Gruenke concluded that without “the famous name” and large dollar figures involved, the incident was a “simple case of a poorly worded statement that was corrected and brought into compliance with the law.”

Musk’s legal team did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Despite Musk’s efforts, the conservative candidate he backed, Brad Schimel, lost to Democratic-backed Susan Crawford, keeping the high court’s liberal majority.