Gather round for another story of Little Eldon Musk and his Big Fake Promises.
Elon Musk appeared to be totally serious when he announced at a Pennsylvania town hall in October 2024 that his political action committee America PAC would give $1 million to randomly selected people who signed a pledge to support the Constitution. Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, the 18 giveaways did actually occur, but two class-action lawsuits arose contesting that they were in no way random.
And now Musk appears to be trying to avoid sitting for a deposition, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Attorneys for the plaintiffs put in a request with the judge to force Musk to take part and for the PAC to release internal documents as well. But the billionaire’s attorneys are instead opting for a summary judgment, arguing there were no false statements, no contract, and, in an ironic nod to the original promise, that his statements were merely a form of protected speech.
At the time, Musk stressed in particular freedom of speech and the right to bear arms when discussing the giveaway in person and on X.
Obviously, none of the 18 recipients of the $1 million seems to have any problem with getting that much money. But those who didn’t receive the money took issue with a February deposition, in which America PAC Director Chris Young seemed to admit the selection was in no way random and that there were “no sweepstakes” and had “no winners.” Rather, he said the people who were given the money were selected based on criteria that they’d be ideal spokespeople for the PAC itself.
These aren’t the first suits related to the promised giveaway. A previous case filed in Michigan last year was dismissed, and that seems to be what Musk’s attorneys are hoping for in the two current suits with the U.S. District Court in Austin.
It remains to be seen whether they’ll get any traction. But none of the cases seem to be slowing down Musk’s promises to give away $1 million. In January on X, he once again promised “$1M prize for the top X article.” Surely there won’t be any issues with that one either.
The Statesman story, which is paywalled, ran in the business section of the print version of the Chron on Wednesday. Here’s their Facebook post about it, with a non-gift link to their story. The Law360 article about the dismissed suit in Michigan is also paywalled but the brief excerpt of it that I could see indicated that the suit was tossed for lack of standing by the plaintiffs. Which may end up being the case with this one as well, I have no idea. A motion to dismiss by Musk last year was denied, so that’s something. Here’s hoping Musk is forced to testify, or handed his ass if he refuses.