Elon Musk is the richest man in the world, and he thinks that means he can do anything he wants. And what he seems to want most now is to get Donald Trump re-elected.

In his zest for getting Trump back into the White House, Musk has plowed huge amounts of money into supporting his campaign. But in typical Musk style, he seems to be ignoring anything that might constrain him from doing what he wants.

Many legal experts are pointing out the likelihood that Musk is breaking election and campaign finance laws with his actions.

• Musk has offered to pay $100 to verified registered Pennsylvania voters, or $47 to voters in other battleground states, who fill out a petition sponsored by America PAC, his super political action committee. The petition requires that signers profess support for the constitutional rights to free speech and firearms. Some election law specialists believe this offer oversteps the boundaries of what is legally permissible.
• At his Town Hall on October 19th, Musk stated that he will be awarding $1 million every day until the election to a registered Pennsylvania voter who has signed this petition. Even more clearly than the petition itself, this appears to violate 52 U.S.C. 10307(c), which prohibits paying or offering to pay for registration to vote.
• The Trump campaign has largely outsourced its get-out-the-vote operation to Musk’s Super PAC. This raises questions of potential coordination between the Super PAC and the campaign, which is prohibited. Musk’s appearance with Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania also raises coordination concerns.
• A dark money group that reportedly received over $100 million in funding from Musk created a website for a fake initiative called Progress 2028 that purports to be tied to Harris, and is promoting it with digital advertising and texts to voters. In addition to this entire misleading effort being highly unethical, the texts in particular may be in violation of the law.
• Musk’s purchase of Twitter enables him to use it to promote Trump and disparage Harris through his own tweets, tweak the algorithm to favor pro-Trump content and throttle pro-Harris content, and potentially give the Trump campaign preferential treatment in advertising rates or access to opportunities like hosting a livestream with him on X’s Spaces, These actions could be viewed as in-kind contributions to the Trump campaign, which federal law prohibits companies from doing, and also potentially election interference. These actions could also potentially be considered to be evidence of coordination, which as mentioned above is prohibited.
• ·Musk often makes or promote posts on X that are not factual. Spreading false or misleading information that could impact election outcomes can be considered as voter suppression or interference with the electoral process. According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, Musk has made at least 50 posts since January 2024 that contain false or misleading information about the presidential election.

These are all issues that are absolutely begging to be investigated by the government. But Musk is counting on that not happening, or not happening anytime soon.

Musk’s modus operandi for his entire career has been to break laws with impunity, believing he can either get away with it, or pay any fines out of his vast riches.

We mustn’t let Musk treat our election and campaign finance laws as things that he can simply ignore.

The Department of Justice, the Federal Election Commission, and all relevant congressional committees all need to be looking into Musk’s behavior and hold him accountable. And they need to do it now, not wait until after the election. He can’t be allowed to get away with actions that illegally influence the election.

Please sign this petition if you want the U.S. government to #holdmuskaccountable for his outrageous behavior that undermines our democracy.