Elon Musk won’t face criminal charges for alleged election bribery in Wisconsin’s 2025 Supreme Court election, the top prosecutor for La Crosse County announced Tuesday.
In an open letter, La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke wrote that he doesn’t believe he’d be able to convince a jury that the tech billionaire committed a crime in his 2025 social media posts, in which he offered to “personally hand over two checks for a million dollars” to voters.
The letter focuses on two posts from March 27, 2025. In the first, Musk said he was going to give a talk in Wisconsin and that entrance was “limited to those who have voted in the Supreme Court Election.”
“I will also personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote,” Musk wrote in the post, before replacing it with a clarification about 12 hours later.
“To clarify a previous post, entrance is limited to those who have signed the petition in opposition to activist judges,” the second post read. “I will also hand over checks for a million dollars to 2 people to be spokesmen for the petition.”
While Gruenke on Tuesday acknowledged ways that the first could be viewed as alleged wrongdoing, he also acknowledged that it could “be seen as giving entry to a free town hall (nothing of value so not a bribe) and the money awarded was a pre-determined payment for people selected as ‘spokesmen,’ therefore not a reward for voting.” He noted that the second post recognized the potential violation and corrected it — adding that “nobody was paid anything of value for voting or promising to vote.”
The Wisconsin Elections Commission had concluded in a 5-1 vote last month that the two posts violated the state’s election bribery statute and referred them to the special prosecutor, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
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