Billionaire Elon Musk faces legal trouble over promise to ‘give’ $1 million to voters

Billionaire Elon Musk, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, is facing a legal challenge after announcing on March 28 that he would give $1 million to two voters in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election. The move is Mr. Musk’s latest attempt to influence the outcome of important elections in the US.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul said on Instagram that his office was aware of Musk’s proposal and would quickly take legal action to ask the court to block it.

Billionaire Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a top adviser to the Trump administration, has spent millions of dollars supporting Republican candidate Brad Schimel. If he wins, Schimel will help shape the balance of power on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, a key battleground state.

On the social media platform X, Musk announced that he would personally hand out checks worth $1 million to two people who signed a petition opposing “activist judges” – a term Republicans often use to refer to judges whose rulings are unfavorable to President Trump’s policies. In addition, he also offered to pay $100 to anyone who signed the petition.

Musk previously offered millions of dollars in key battleground states to encourage voters to support the Republican Party in last year’s presidential election.

The Wisconsin court will soon consider a number of important national issues, such as access to abortion and voting rules in the 2026 midterm congressional elections.

Elon Musk sells social network X to consolidate power

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has completed a $33 billion acquisition of X, marking a major step in consolidating the billionaire’s growing power.

Elon Musk has sold his social network X to his own company (Photo: Reuters).

The all-stock deal announced on Friday will combine two companies in Elon Musk’s diverse portfolio, including automaker Tesla and SpaceX, and could potentially make it easier for him to train his AI model, Grok.

Musk announced the deal in a post on X, saying: “The combined value of xAI is $80 billion and X is $33 billion ($45 billion minus $12 billion in debt).

The futures of xAI and X are inextricably linked. Today, we are officially taking the step to combine data, models, compute, distribution, and talent.”

However, many specifics of the deal remain unclear, such as how investors will be compensated and whether X’s leadership will be rotated to xAI.

“The sale of X to xAI is a surprising and unexpected move. To some extent, it closes a chapter in the tumultuous story of X,” said Paolo Pescatore, an analyst at PP Foresight.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is consolidating his power in Washington DC by joining the Trump administration as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

That also puts him in a position to influence agencies that oversee his business dealings.

An xAI investor told Reuters that they were not surprised by the deal, seeing it as Musk’s move to consolidate leadership and management at his own companies.

Elon Musk did not ask investors for approval, saying the two companies have worked closely together and the integration would be a strong growth driver for Grok.

Competing with OpenAI

Musk’s xAI startup was founded less than two years ago and recently raised $10 billion in a funding round that valued the company at $75 billion, according to media reports.

In February, he made a $97.4 billion offer to acquire OpenAI with its ChatGPT tool, but was rejected on the grounds that the startup was not for sale.

Note that Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI with CEO Sam Altman in 2015.

The xAI company competes directly with the popular OpenAI platform and has sued in federal court in California to stop its rival from converting from a nonprofit to a for-profit.

A judge earlier this month denied Musk’s request for a preliminary injunction that would have blocked the conversion.

The widespread release of AI software has sparked a wave of investment and competition in Silicon Valley.

These companies are looking to integrate the software into almost every part of their operations.

As competition in the AI ​​space has intensified, xAI has been ramping up its data center capacity to train more advanced models, and its supercomputer cluster in Memphis, Tennessee, dubbed “Colossus,” is considered the world’s largest.

xAI introduced Grok-3, the latest version of its chatbot, in February in an effort to compete with Chinese AI firm DeepSeek and Microsoft-backed OpenAI.

The sale of X to xAI allows the social media platform to serve as a platform for further distribution of xAI products, while also providing a real-time feed of users’ thoughts, screenshots, and other data.

Twitter is freed

Elon Musk signed a deal in 2022 to buy X (then Twitter) for $44 billion, ending its time as a public company since its initial public offering in 2013.

He declared that the “bird was free” after the acquisition was completed. Musk immediately cut the company’s staff, causing advertisers to leave the platform and revenue to plummet.

Brands have recently returned to X as Musk’s influence has grown in the Trump administration.

Earlier on March 28, a US judge rejected Musk’s request to dismiss a lawsuit alleging he defrauded former Twitter shareholders by waiting too long to disclose his initial investment in the company.