Musk settles lawsuits over $1 million voter giveaway
Elon Musk has agreed to settle two US lawsuits in which two Arizona residents called his voter lottery a fraud. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed.
Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has agreed to settle two lawsuits filed in Austin, Texas, over his 2024 promise to give away $1 million a day to a randomly selected registered voter in a US swing state. The details of the settlement, including any sum, have not been made public. The news was reported by tech outlet The Verge on 17 October 2026.
What the plaintiffs alleged
The plaintiffs are two Arizona residents. They say that when Musk announced the sweepstakes, he falsely stated that prizes would be awarded at random. According to them, they would not have signed the petition required to enter had they known the drawings were not random.
They also accuse Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, of using the giveaway as a ploy to collect user data. They argue that the petition places no limits on America PAC's use or sale of the personal data it gathers and gives no additional information about how the data would be used.
Earlier disputes
The giveaway had already raised questions about its legality. The District Attorney of Philadelphia sued to stop it, claiming Musk was running an illegal lottery. At a hearing, America PAC representative Chris Gober told the judge that the $1 million recipients were not chosen by chance and that the organisers knew exactly who would be announced as the recipient that day and the next.
That statement directly contradicted Musk's claim that the drawings were random.
