Elon Musk has handed out million-dollar cheques to two voters in Wisconsin.
Mr Musk, a senior adviser to the US president, made the donations (worth £772,000 each) ahead of a Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
At a rally on Sunday, the tech billionaire framed the election as critical to President Donald Trump‘s agenda and “the future of civilisation”.
It is not the first time Mr Musk has given away money to voters, he offered a similar giveaway in battleground states ahead of November’s US presidential elections.
A judge ruled at the time that the giveaways could continue, despite legal efforts to stop them.
Wearing a yellow foam cheese hat, synonymous with the state and the Green Bay Packers American football team, Mr Musk told the crowd the election was “a super big deal” as the Republican majority in the House of Representatives was “razor thin”.
“And if the [Wisconsin] Supreme Court is able to redraw the districts, they will gerrymander the district and deprive Wisconsin of two seats on the Republican side,” he said.
“Then they will try to stop all the government reforms we are getting done, for you the American people.”
A legal challenge to Musk’s giveaway failed, with Wisconsin’s Supreme Court refusing to hear an appeal by the state’s Democratic attorney general Josh Kaul, minutes before the rally was due to start.
Mr Kaul argued Wisconsin law “prohibits offering anything of value to induce anyone to vote”, but the court declined to take the case as an original action, giving no rationale for its decision.
Mr Musk’s lawyers argued he was exercising his right to free speech and that the aim of the payments was to “generate a grassroots movement in opposition to activist judges”.
Wisconsin’s hotly-contested election, on which Mr Musk and groups he supports have spent more than $20m (£15.4m), takes place on Tuesday.
In a post on X on Friday, Mr Musk said he planned to “personally hand over” two million dollars to a pair of voters who had already cast their ballots.
But he later clarified his position, and said that the money would instead go to people who will be “spokesmen” for an online petition against “activist” judges.
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One of the recipients of a cheque at the rally was a Green Bay man who has donated to the state’s Republican party and the conservative candidate in the court race, and who has a history of posting support for Mr Trump and his agenda.
The ballot has broken national spending records for a judicial election, with more than $81m (£62.5m) spent.
