Elon faces felony rap over $1M Wisconsin check stunt

Elon Musk has 40 days to find out if he's a felony defendant.

Elon Musk has 40 days to find out if he’s a felony defendant.

A bipartisan Wisconsin panel — three Democrats, three Republicans — voted 5-1 Thursday to refer the world’s richest man to prosecutors, finding probable cause that his $1 million voter checks before the April 2025 state Supreme Court election were election bribery. In Wisconsin that’s a Class I felony: up to 3.5 years in prison.

Rewind to March 30, 2025. Musk takes the stage at a Green Bay convention center wearing a cheesehead, which he flings into the crowd, and tells more than 1,000 people the race will steer “the course of Western civilization” — possibly “the entire destiny of humanity.” Then he hands oversized $1 million checks to two voters. One of them, Nicholas Jacobs, chaired the Wisconsin College Republicans. Random drawing, indeed.

Musk knew exactly how it looked. His original post announcing the visit was deleted and revised, and after critics pointed out he’d initially promised money to people who had already voted, the winners were hastily rebranded as PAC “spokesmen.” Wisconsin’s attorney general sued to stop the checks; the courts let them go out anyway. The commission has now concluded what the lawsuit couldn’t stop: the social media offer of $1 million to people who voted was made “in order to induce them to vote in that election.”

And what did $20 million-plus buy him? His candidate, Brad Schimel, lost to Susan Crawford by 10 points — in the most expensive judicial race in American history, north of $100 million. Schimel even lost Brown County, the home turf where Musk wore the hat, by 3 points.

Musk’s verdict on the defeat: “The long con of the left is corruption of the judiciary.”

The corruption-of-the-judiciary crowd may want to check the docket. A watchdog lawsuit seeking to ban Musk from ever paying Wisconsin voters again is pending in Brown County. A judge last month ordered Musk to testify under oath in a class action alleging his 2024 giveaway defrauded petition-signers because winners weren’t actually chosen at random. And through it all, Tesla has been suing Wisconsin over its dealership ban — a case that could land before the very Supreme Court Musk spent millions trying to flip.

Now the decision belongs to one man: Brown County DA David Lasee, a Republican, who hasn’t said a word about the referral. Neither has Musk’s camp. Neither has Musk — a notable silence from a man who never met a legal fight he wouldn’t live-post.

The clock started Thursday. Lasee has 40 days to decide: no charges, and Musk walks away clean — or he can put the world's richest man on trial for handing out checks in a cheesehead hat.

The checks cleared 15 months ago. Elon's bill is still being written.