Elon Musk will face a lawsuit accusing him of defrauding voters with his shady, pre-2024 election lottery—in which the billionaire dangled a chance for a million-dollar payday over voters who signed a pro-Constitution petition by his America PAC.
“We are going to be awarding $1 million randomly to people who have signed the petition, every day, from now until the election,” Musk told a Pennsylvania crowd in October. But amid a failed attempt by Philadelphia’s district attorney to halt the giveaway, America PAC revealed that the $1 million recipients were not chosen by chance but handpicked, with their personal stories being a factor in the selection process.
This was news to Jacqueline McAferty of Arizona, who had signed the petition and, on Election Day, proposed a class action, claiming that Musk and America PAC had defrauded voters. Musk, McAferty said, induced voters with false statements to sign the petition and submit “personal, private information” in the process.
Musk in January sought to get the case dismissed, insisting that people who signed up for the chance to win $1 million weren’t harmed by sharing their personal information and were told—despite his apparent statements to the contrary—that America PAC staffers would review their cases rather than leave their selection up to chance.
But on Wednesday, a federal judge in Texas ordered Musk to face the lawsuit.
“It is plausible that plaintiff justifiably relied on those statements to believe that defendants were objectively offering her the chance to enter a random lottery—even if that is not what they subjectively intended to do,” wrote U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, per Reuters.
Pitman also suggested that a political data expert could testify and help determine the value of the information that McAferty and other signatories provided to Musk.
Musk’s presence in the political sphere has shrunk in recent months. He funneled millions into the Trump campaign and led the president’s efforts to gut the federal government before the two had a very public falling out over the administration’s sweeping tax and spending plan.
But the world’s richest man remains interested in politics: When The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Musk had given up on his plans to start a political party, which he first cooked up during his feud with Trump, Musk suggested that this wasn’t true.
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