The Justice Department warned Elon Musk that his $1 million giveaway could come with a prison sentence—and it appears he’s actually paying attention.
After receiving a warning from the Justice Department, Elon Musk has stopped his $1 million giveaway to swing voters from his super PAC.
The tech CEO pledged Saturday to give away the hefty sum each day to one registered voter in a battleground state who signed America PAC’s pro–First and Second Amendment pledge. Every day since then, a winner has been announced: three Pennsylvania voters and one North Carolina voter.
However, the move immediately raised legal questions, as it’s a federal crime to pay someone to register to vote, punishable by a fine of $10,000, five years in prison, or both. Experts were divided, with Musk’s plan falling into a legal gray area at best. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro called the move “deeply concerning,” and author Stephen King accused Musk of “paying to register Republicans.”
You send a warning and if they don’t follow it you can now apply for a harsher sentence.
If you skip the warning you might win still, but you’ll have a harder time getting the harshest punishment.
They could still charge him post warning even if he’d stopped, but then it looks like he cooperated and will probably not get the harshest punishment.
Harshest punishment requires the warning and ignoring of it.
Does it say that in the law code? I thought that being ignorant of the law doesn’t matter for most prosecutions (“ignorantia juris non excusat”)
Not by law, but it’s just like first time offenders or cooperating defendants or guilty pleas often getting lighter sentences.
They could still throw the book at you, as they do at times, but it’s not a guaranteed success.