Elon Musk gives $ 1m checks ahead of the election of the Wisconsin Supreme Court

Billionaire Elon Musk has granted $ 1m checks (£ 770,000) to voters in Wisconsin after the state Supreme Court refused to intervene.

Musk announced the award earlier this week, ahead of the Wisconsin Supreme Court elections that will be held on Tuesday.

Wisconsin’s attorney general and democrat, Josh Kaul, had sued to stop the raffle, arguing that Musk was violating a state law that prohibits gifts in exchange for votes.

The race, which could turn control of the State Supreme Court to Republicans, has become a point of inflammation and the most expensive judicial election in the history of the United States.

Speaking in a demonstration on Sunday night, Musk said that “we just want the judges to be judges”, before delivering two checks of $ 1m (£ 750,000) to the voters who had signed a request to stop the “activist” judges.

Kaul had tried to argue that the raffle was an illegal attempt to buy votes. Musk’s lawyers, in response, argued that Kaul is “restricting Musk’s political discourse and reducing their rights of the first amendment.”

Musk’s lawyers added that payments were “aimed at generating a basic movement in opposition to activist judges, not to expressly advocate or against any candidate.”

After two lower courts were put on Musk’s side, Kaul begged the State Supreme Court for a postponement of 11 hours. But the Superior Court unanimously refused to listen to the case.

The musk and President Donald Trump have backed a conservative candidate, Waukesha County judge Brad Schimel, hopefully turning the liberal court.

Judge Schimel runs against Dane’s County Judge, Susan Crawford, who has been supported by the liberal judges of the State Supreme Court.

The lawyers of the Technological Titan also argued that judges who have publicly supported Judge Crawford in the Supreme Court career should be prohibited by ruling the matter, arguing that it is a matter of bias.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court race is being seen by political observers as a referendum in Trump’s second mandate, just a few months after its inauguration.

It also advances to the consequent cases that will land before the Court on the rights of abortion, the redistribution of congress districts and the voting rules that could affect the half -period elections of 2026.

Musk himself has framed elections as an opportunity to stop redistributing, which could give the Democrats favor Congress.

He has donated $ 14 million to Judge Schimel’s campaign, since the career demonstrates to be the most expensive judicial career in the history of the country, with $ 81 million in total expenses.

Despite his support, Judge Schimel seemed to distance himself from Musk in recent days, telling Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Friday that he had no plans to be at the rally.

“I have no idea what he is doing. I have no idea what this rally is,” Judge Schimel told the newspaper.

This is not the first time that Musk announces a raffle to voters. Last year, it similarly offered an cash prize of $ 1ma to voters in Wisconsin and six other battlefield states if they signed a petition that supported the rights of first and second amendment.

Later, a judge in Pennsylvania ruled that the raffle was legal, saying that prosecutors did not show that it was an illegal lottery.