Elon Musk Sure Seems Scared After That DOJ Warning on His Dumb Lottery

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 468 points – Elon Musk Sure Seems Scared After That DOJ Warning on His Dumb Lottery
newrepublic.com

The Justice Department warned Elon Musk that his $1 million giveaway could come with a prison sentence—and it appears he’s actually paying attention.

After receiving a warning from the Justice Department, Elon Musk has stopped his $1 million giveaway to swing voters from his super PAC.

The tech CEO pledged Saturday to give away the hefty sum each day to one registered voter in a battleground state who signed America PAC’s pro–First and Second Amendment pledge. Every day since then, a winner has been announced: three Pennsylvania voters and one North Carolina voter. 

However, the move immediately raised legal questions, as it’s a federal crime to pay someone to register to vote, punishable by a fine of $10,000, five years in prison, or both. Experts were divided, with Musk’s plan falling into a legal gray area at best. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro called the move “deeply concerning,” and author Stephen King accused Musk of “paying to register Republicans.”

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I don't want to rock the boat or anything, but does anybody else think that maybe we need just a tiny bit of judicial reform? It seems to me like there's an awful lot of people doing an awful lot of criming and our judicial system is apparently not that interested about stopping them until after the next election. And there's always a next election.

So far.

What chaps my hide is that this is just a warning and not outright a clear case of election interference. I'm tired of warnings instead of judgments. Less likely to see these stories if people actually faced consequences for their actions.

If I did it I'd be in jail already. The rules are different when you're rich.

If by reform you mean we need to just get rid of people who are too wealthy to get away with crime, then yes… Any measure to accomplish this is acceptable by me

Absolutely goddamn tax them out of existence. Yesterday.

Tax, is that a euphemism for guillotine?

Guillotines were considered somewhat painless, I am far more malicious. Get a length of rope and a shitty executioner, I want em to suffocate.

While that idea does get my motor running, I’d be fine with not giving them any attention, just doing the job and moving on like they never existed. Also, deleting their Wikipedia pages.

Meanwhile some deaf, mentally impaired, black dude gets tased and beat up by police for the crime of... Checks watch... Being black and unable to hear the officer.

Well he already broke the law. Jail him.

Sorry he is too wealthy for that. Best they can do is politely warn him.

Makes one wonder how much wealth it takes, and what other things work the same way.

We reached out to Jeffrey Epstein for comment.

At the time of this post he has not responded to our inquiry.

The only way to actually be punished as a rich person is to endanger the position of other rich people.

It's the unforgivable sin.

We reached out to Bernie Madoff for comment...

Bernie Madoff took money from a LOT of rich people - both directly and indirectly.

yeah that's my point. that's why he got sentenced.

It seeming like we need some sort of working people's militia. A vigilante group that actually holds billionaires just as accountable as us.

Put these mother fuckers in jail until their court date just like us.

Set their bail proportional to their wealth. If I get $10,000 bail he gets a $10,000,000,000 dollar bail.

What if we citizens-arrest these people? Isn't that our duty?

I can find a nice Barn to lock them in until their court date

if it's illegal, just sue his ass already. you dont send warning to ordianry people who breaches the law right? at this point i have to say i'll be happy if musk would continue the lottery, slapping a giant F word in the DOJ's face.

You send a warning and if they don't follow it you can now apply for a harsher sentence.

If you skip the warning you might win still, but you'll have a harder time getting the harshest punishment.

They could still charge him post warning even if he'd stopped, but then it looks like he cooperated and will probably not get the harshest punishment.

Harshest punishment requires the warning and ignoring of it.

Harshest punishment requires the warning and ignoring of it.

Does it say that in the law code? I thought that being ignorant of the law doesn't matter for most prosecutions ("ignorantia juris non excusat")

Not by law, but it's just like first time offenders or cooperating defendants or guilty pleas often getting lighter sentences.

They could still throw the book at you, as they do at times, but it's not a guaranteed success.

The grey area is that he uses the petition as a strawman. The DOJ will need to prove it is a strawman. At the same time the petition works as a filter to only attract republicans and put off democrats.

I agree this should be persecuted but there is enough mud in the water for a drawn out trial and finally the criminals in SCOTUS to rule it acceptable.

He awarded two more $1M prizes after a pause on Wednesday

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/elon-musk-s-super-pac-awards-1-million-prizes-to-2-registered-voters-despite-doj-warning/ar-AA1sTk9E

Bingo, the wording of what he’s giving it away for has nothing to do with registering to vote. It is about signing his PAC if you are already registered to vote. If you yourself determine that voting would be a reason to register and you also sign his PAC well, then you get $1 million. There’s nothing illegal about that and Elon only got a warning, if it was something illegal, he would’ve been arrested for already doing it before, they issued that “warning”.

From what I've been reading, it's so close to vote buying and similar crimes it's a legal grey area at best.

"Oh no. I got all the benefits I was after and now I can skip out on paying people a million dollars a day and blame the Democrat's for not doing it. Wah"

$10,000 fine on a $1,000,000 lottery is just a 1% tax. I'm surprised he even bothered to notice.

It was probably the 5 years in prison part that he cares about

If he stops it now, he's not going to see prison or pay a dime...

Even if he doesn't stop it now, he’s not going to see prison or pay a dime…

I'd even say the government is gonna give him some more money

I'm assuming there's an additional risk of having to step down from any company he owns with federal contracts as well.

He ain't scared of shit. At the end of the day he's so rich he could murder someone in broad daylight with multiple witnesses and still walkl a free man.

In America money buys freedom

It doesn't only buy your freedom, it buys other people's freedom away from them too

I'd like to see him get arrested and then see how scared he is. This warning seems like the same strongly-worded letter all these rich assholes get.