By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-10-16 02:46:25 | Updated at 2026-10-16 03:39:20
1 hour ago
Elon Musk speaks during a town hall in Lancaster, Pa., on Oct. 26, 2024. Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Elon Musk and his America PAC agreed in an Oct. 15 court filing to settle two lawsuits alleging that Musk defrauded voters during the 2024 election by promising $1 million giveaways to randomly selected registered voters.
Musk offered the daily giveaways to registered voters who signed a petition supporting both the First and Second Amendments of the Constitution in the weeks leading up to the 2024 presidential election. Two Arizona residents filed lawsuits against Musk and his political action committee (PAC) claiming that while voters were told the $1 million recipients would be chosen randomly in a lottery style, they did not have a real chance to win.
Musk founded America PAC in 2024 to support President Donald Trump’s campaign against Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
The plaintiffs in the two proposed class-action lawsuits—Jacqueline McAferty and Joy Harvick—Musk, and America PAC informed U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman of the Western District of Texas’s Austin Division that they reached settlements, which are subject to approval by the court.
The parties requested that the court vacate any deadlines pertaining to the lawsuits and stay further proceedings for 30 days to allow the settlements to be finalized and executed and to file a motion for preliminary approval. Thursday’s court filings did not disclose the terms of the two settlements.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Hightower had said in June that Musk would be required to testify in the lawsuits McAferty v. Musk and Harvick v. Musk.
The two plaintiffs, both Arizona residents, accused Musk and America PAC of misleading voters in seven swing states into signing Musk’s petition to support the Constitution.
The plaintiffs said the defendants promised the $1 million recipients would be selected “randomly.” However, McAferty and Harvick alleged that voters did not have a legitimate chance of winning, citing one of Musk’s lawyers who said the 18 winners were selected because they might be good spokespeople for Musk’s PAC.
McAferty said voters who signed Musk’s petition were required to provide their names, phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses. She told the court that if she had known that she had no chance of winning the $1 million giveaway, she would not have signed the petition or provided her personal information.
McAferty also alleged that Musk and America PAC profited off her personally identifiable information and accused the defendants of defrauding other voters who signed the petition.
Musk and America PAC denied the allegations.
Seeking to dismiss the class-action lawsuits, Musk and his legal team previously said there were multiple “red flags” that showed he had not run an illegal lottery for the $1 million giveaways. Musk’s legal team said voters were informed that the recipients of the $1 million giveaways were “selected to earn” the money and were expected to become spokespeople for America PAC.
However, Pitman said public and promotional statements for the giveaways suggested that Musk and America PAC were “awarding” the money and that the $1 million could be “won.”
“It is plausible that plaintiff justifiably relied on those statements to believe that defendants were objectively offering her the chance to enter a random lottery—even if that is not what they subjectively intended to do,” Pitman wrote in an August court order concerning the McAferty v. Musk case.
The Epoch Times reached out to the plaintiffs’ attorneys for comment on Thursday’s settlement announcements but did not receive a response before publication time. The Epoch Times was unable to reach the attorneys for Elon Musk and America PAC.
Reuters contributed to this report.
