Tesla CEO Elon Musk, the second biggest financial supporter of former United States president Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential election campaign, is seeking to avoid the hearing of a lawsuit over his $1 million giveaway to voters and is busy making efforts to transfer it.
After the judge’s orders, the 53-year-old tech billionaire’s lawyers filed a “motion of removal” in a federal court, as it will allow the state case to pause and be passed on to the federal judge unless the judge chooses not to send back the case.
As a result, District Attorney Philadelphia Larry Krasner can argue that the case should be sent back to the Pennsylvania court.
Amidst this legal battle, Musk’s Pro-Trump America PAC has continued its daily giveaway of $1 million to registered voters in swing states.
In their new federal filings, Musk’s lawyers mentioned: “The Complaint, in truth, has little to do with state-law claims of nuisance and consumer protection.
“Rather, although disguised as state law claims, the Complaint’s focus is to prevent Defendants purported ‘interference’ with the forthcoming Federal Presidential Election by any means.”
Presenting a preemptive argument in the lawsuit, Krasner said that “this is not a case about whether Defendants have violated state or federal laws prohibiting vote-buying”.
He reasoned that this is a state matter as the owner of the social media platform X was “indisputably violating Pennsylvania’s statutory prohibitions against illegal lotteries and deceiving consumers.”
In their response to this, Musk’s legal team said that his overall spending in presidential elections is “legally protected expenditures and political speech”.
“Musk has the right to remove this to federal court if there is jurisdiction, but with removal comes delay,” said Derek Muller, an election law expert.
“This essentially restarts the process, and puts this in front of a new court, with a new judge, to take a fresh look at it. So, it has the benefit — for Musk — of slowing things down.”
Muller’s remarks came after the Tesla boss was accused of operating an illegal lottery, trying to influence the 2024 elections.
He said that it’s “probably a longshot, but not impossible”. He added that the Federal assigned judge to this matter “will want to decide this as quickly as possible, given the election.”
For the upcoming hearing scheduled for Friday, Krasner applied for a request in court to “enhance its security”.
