Elon Musk gave two Wisconsin voters $1 million checks two days before the 2025 state Supreme Court election

On March 30, 2025, two days before Wisconsin's state Supreme Court election, Elon Musk personally handed $1 million checks to two Wisconsin voters, Nicholas Jacobs and Ekaterina Diestler, at a rally inside a Green Bay convention center. Musk's political action committee, America PAC, had designated the two as "spokesmen" for a petition opposing "activist judges," after Musk deleted an earlier social media post that had offered the payments explicitly to people who had already voted in the race. "It's really just to get attention," Musk told the crowd after handing over the first check. "We need to get attention."

Musk framed the race -- between conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel and liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford -- as pivotal to control of Congress, telling attendees that a new Wisconsin Supreme Court could redraw the state's congressional maps at a time of a narrow U.S. House majority. He and organizations he funded spent more than $20 million backing Schimel, making the contest, at over $100 million in total spending, the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul sued to block the giveaway before the rally, arguing it violated the state's ban on offering "anything of value" to induce someone to vote, but a circuit court, an appeals court, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court all declined to stop the payments.

Schimel lost to Crawford by roughly 10 percentage points, preserving the court's 4-3 liberal majority. America PAC separately offered $100 to any Wisconsin voter who signed the "activist judges" petition or referred another signer, and Musk said he gave a third $1 million check to a voter in Eau Claire around the same time.

Updates

2025-06-11 — Wisconsin Democracy Campaign sued Musk over vote bribery, unauthorized lottery [4, 5]

The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonpartisan election-transparency watchdog, and two Wisconsin voters sued Musk, America PAC, and a Musk-affiliated entity, United States of America Inc., alleging the $1 million checks and $100 petition payments violated the state's election-bribery and unauthorized-lottery statutes and asking the court to bar Musk from ever repeating the scheme. The case, filed in Dane County Circuit Court and later moved to Brown County, remained open and in pretrial proceedings as of mid-2026.

2026-07-09 — Wisconsin Elections Commission found probable cause of election bribery [6, 7, 8]

The bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 5-1 in closed session to find probable cause that Musk violated the state's election-bribery statute by offering $1 million to induce people to vote in the 2025 Supreme Court election, based on two voter complaints from Milwaukee and Green Bay, and referred the matter to the Brown County District Attorney, who has up to 40 days to report back on whether to pursue criminal charges.

2026-08-07 — Brown County DA recused, appointed special prosecutor over Musk case [9, 10]

Brown County District Attorney David Lasee determined his office had a conflict of interest in the Wisconsin Elections Commission's referral and asked La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke to serve as special prosecutor; a court officially appointed Gruenke to review the case.