WASHINGTON: Elon Musk asked a federal judge to dismiss a proposed class action by voters who said the world\u2019s richest person defrauded them into signing a petition to support the US Constitution for a chance to win his $1 million-a-day giveaway.
\nIn a late Friday filing in the Austin, Texas federal court, Musk rejected the claim the giveaway was an illegal \u201clottery\u201d that violated a Texas law against deceptive trade practices.
\nArizona resident Jacqueline McAferty claimed that Musk and his political action committee America PAC falsely induced voters in seven battleground states to sign the petition by promising that winners would be chosen randomly.
\nMusk founded America PAC to support Republican Donald Trump\u2019s successful 2024 presidential run.
\nAccording to Musk, however, voters were told they would be reviewed for an opportunity to earn the $1 million by becoming America PAC spokespeople.
\nThis, Musk said, defeated any notion that the money was a \u201cprize\u201d to be won.
\n\u201cMake no mistake: an eligible voter\u2019s opportunity to earn is not the same thing as a chance to win,\u201d Musk said.
\nChance, he added, \u201cwas not involved here.\u201d
\nMusk also rejected the suggestion that petition signers suffered harm by providing their names, addresses and phone numbers, which they said Musk and America PAC could then sell.
\nLawyers for the proposed class did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.
\nThe lawsuit was filed on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024.
\nA day earlier, a Philadelphia judge refused to end Musk\u2019s giveaway, saying that city\u2019s top prosecutor also failed to show it was an illegal lottery.
\nMcAferty\u2019s lawsuit seeks at least $5 million in damages for everyone who signed the petition.
\nMusk is a Texas resident and his electric car company Tesla is based in Austin.
\nThe case is McAferty v Musk et al, US District Court, Western District of Texas, No. 24-01346.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: Elon Musk asked a federal judge to dismiss a proposed class action by voters who said the world\u2019s richest person defrauded them into signing a petition to support the US Constitution for a chance to win his $1 million-a-day giveaway. In a late Friday filing in the Austin, Texas federal court, Musk rejected the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":76154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76157,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76137\/revisions\/76157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}