Elon Musk's America PAC paid Pennsylvania swing-state voters $47 apiece to sign and refer a political petition ahead of the 2024 election

On October 7, 2024, Elon Musk's America PAC publicly announced it would pay $47 to any registered swing-state voter who successfully referred another registered voter to sign a petition pledging support for the First and Second Amendments, with the referrer also required to sign for the payment to count. Musk, who ultimately spent roughly $290 million to help elect Donald Trump and other Republicans that cycle, promoted the offer on X as "easy money" and set a goal of one million signatures, with payments reaching voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina by an October 21 deadline; the per-signature payment was later raised to $100.

The payment structure was built to route around laws that bar paying someone directly to register to vote or to vote a particular way, instead compensating people for soliciting and signing a nominally issue-based petition timed to the campaign's closing weeks. UCLA election-law professor Richard Hasen, an NBC News analyst, said he had "not seen anything like this," calling it a more blatant use of a platform owner mobilizing voters with cash than he had seen from any other social or traditional media figure.

Two federal class-action lawsuits later filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania allege the PAC and its vendors did not pay many canvassers and petition signers as promised, including an hourly canvasser who says he is owed more than $20,000 in referral pay and Lancaster, Pennsylvania voter Anthony Maglietta, who says he and others were never paid at all for signing or referring others. America PAC has said it has "mailed the overwhelming majority of checks owed" and continues to process disputed payments.

Updates

2026-01-07 — Judge denied Musk's motion to dismiss, extended discovery deadline [4]

U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone denied a motion by Elon Musk's attorneys to dismiss portions of Anthony Maglietta's proposed class-action lawsuit over the unpaid signature-referral payments, keeping the case alive, and extended the parties' discovery deadline to April 1, 2026, after which she is expected to rule on whether the case may proceed as a class action.

2026-07-27 — America PAC lawyer told judge PAC won't turn over discovery documents [3]

America PAC's counsel told U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone the PAC would not produce documents plaintiffs' attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan requested in December 2025, saying the records were held by third-party vendors; those vendors, in turn, told plaintiffs the PAC held the documents. Liss-Riordan said some of the vendors, including entities established by Musk, may not be independent of America PAC, and both sides have sought a third extension of the class-certification deadline, from July 31 to November 30, 2026.