Wisconsin Prosecutor Declines to Charge Elon Musk Over 2025 $1 Million Voter Giveaways

La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke announced Tuesday he will not file election-bribery charges against Elon Musk over March 2025 social-media posts and a Green Bay event tied to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race.

Gruenke, a Democrat appointed as special prosecutor after the Brown County district attorney cited a conflict of interest, reviewed two complaints the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission referred in July. The commission had voted 5-1 that there was probable cause Musk violated Wis. Stat. § 12.11 by offering money to induce voting.

The disputed post, published March 27, 2025, at 11:57 p.m. on X, said entrance to a Wisconsin talk would be “limited to those who have voted in the Supreme Court Election” and that Musk would “personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote.” About 12 hours later a clarifying post replaced it: entrance would be limited to those who signed a petition against “activist judges,” and the checks would go to two people “to be spokesmen for the petition.” Musk later handed oversized checks to two attendees at the March 30 Green Bay town hall, identifying them as petition spokespeople. Courts had already declined Attorney General Josh Kaul’s last-minute request to block the event.

In a letter explaining his decision, Gruenke wrote that the first post was ambiguous—it could be read either as a lottery-style reward for voting or as admission to a free event with predetermined spokesman payments. “Under either view, the second post apparently recognized that potential violation and corrected it.” He concluded: “Either way the first post is perceived, in the end nobody was paid anything of value for voting or promising to vote.” Even if a jury could be persuaded the original wording was a bribe, he did not believe it would convict after considering intent, the rapid clarification, and the fact that no one received anything of value for voting. Strip away the famous name and the dollar figures, he wrote, and the episode is “a simple case of a poorly worded statement that was corrected and brought into compliance with the law.”

Wisconsin law prohibits offering anything of value to induce someone to vote, refrain from voting, or vote for or against a candidate. Musk’s America PAC also paid $100 to registered voters who signed the anti-activist-judges petition. Musk was the largest financial backer of conservative Justice Brad Schimel, who lost to liberal Judge Susan Crawford. The criminal referral is now closed. Separate civil litigation over the giveaways has continued independently of Gruenke’s charging decision.