Old and busted: Redistribute the wealth of billionaires! New hotness: Force Elon Musk to stop giving away his money!

To be fair, I did wonder whether Elon Musk's million-dollar daily lottery passed legal muster too. But I also looked around to sign up before investigating it too closely:

Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX who's gone all-in on Republican Donald Trump's candidacy for the White House, is pledging to give away $1 million a day to voters for signing his political action committee's petition backing the Constitution. The offer is sparking questions among election experts about the plan's legality.

Some experts say it is a violation of the law to link a cash handout to signing a petition that also requires a person to be registered to vote. A message seeking comment was left with the PAC on Sunday, as was a request for comment from the Justice Department.

Musk, the wealthiest person in the world with a fortune of $242 billion, has already committed at least $70 million to reelect the former president and is now ramping up his efforts to get voters in swing states to support Trump. The X owner had previously offered supporters $47 for each registered voter in seven battleground states that they could get to sign his petition, a nod to the fact that the winner of the November 5 election will be the nation's 47th president.

It certainly seems dodgy, to say the least. But is it illegal? "Clearly," writes election-law expert Richard Hasen:

Though maybe some of the other things Musk was doing were of murky legality, this one is clearly illegal. See 52 U.S.C. 10307(c): “Whoever knowingly or willfully gives false information as to his name, address or period of residence in the voting district for the purpose of establishing his eligibility to register or vote, or conspires with another individual for the purpose of encouraging his false registration to vote or illegal voting, or pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both…” (Emphasis added.)

See also the DOJ Election Crimes Manual at 44: “The bribe may be anything having monetary value, including cash, liquor, lottery chances, and welfare benefits such as food stamps. Garcia, 719 F.2d at 102. However, offering free rides to the polls or providing employees paid leave while they vote are not prohibited. United States v. Lewin, 467 F.2d 1132, 1136 (7th Cir. 1972). Such things are given to make it easier for people to vote, not to induce them to do so. This distinction is important. For an offer or a payment to violate Section 10307(c), it must have been intended to induce or reward the voter for engaging in one or more acts necessary to cast a ballot.…

True, but the lottery application doesn't require anyone to actually vote. The only prerequisite is that one must be a registered voter who signs the petition supporting the Constitution created by Musk's America PAC. The PAC also registers voters, but it's not necessary to be a newbie to get into the lottery, or at least it's not supposed to be. 

Former FEC chair Brad Smith thinks Musk managed to navigate his way through the statutes:

Brad Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said this was “something of a gray area” but “not that close to the line.”

“He’s not paying them to register to vote. He’s paying them to sign a petition — and he wants only people who are registered to vote to sign the petition. So I think he comes out OK here,” he said.

Frankly, I'm a little bemused by the bemusement, so to speak. Campaigns and PACs have given prizes of value for quite a few years for signing up on e-mail lists, at least. They weren't monetary, but they weren't all nominal either. Some of those prizes involve travel and expensive meals with the candidate, which may not have cost a million bucks but at least involved a couple of thousand dollars, presumably. In all cases, the idea was to get the contestants to donate to the campaign or PAC and eventually to vote in their favor as well. 

As the old joke goes, we've already established what these are. Now we're just haggling over the price. 

At any rate, the Left certainly has turned incoherent in this cycle. They started off wanting to seize capital from billionaires, and now they're calling for legal action against a multi-billionaire for redistributing his own wealth. Frankly, the only aspect of this that bothers me is that Texans didn't get a chance to qualify for the big prize. What happened to the SpaceX-Twitter love, my Texas brother?

Update: Slight edit of the final paragraph to emphasize the fact that Musk is redistributing his own money.