Tech billionaire Elon Musk handed out outsized $1 million checks to 2 attendees of his city corridor in Wisconsin on Sunday night, saying the stunt is cheaper and simpler than paying for a similar quantity of media protection.
“The reason for the checks is that it’s really just to get attention. It’s like, we need to get attention. And it’s somewhat inevitably, when I do this, these things… it causes the legacy media to, like, kind of lose their minds, and then they’ll run it on every news channel,” Musk stated on stage on the city corridor, earlier than giving out the big checks.
“And I’m like, I couldn’t pay them to, it would cost, like, 10 times more… to get the kind of coverage that we get” with out distributing the checks, Musk stated.
He added, later: “This is just helpful for getting attention, and then, like, it’s kind of fun to see the legacy media lose their minds over it too.”
Musk appeared to make good on his promise on Sunday to provide checks to 2 members of the viewers, all of whom have been required to signal his petition towards so-called “activist judges” as a way to get a seat on the occasion.
The city corridor was held upfront of Tuesday’s important Wisconsin Supreme Court docket race, into which Musk and his America PAC have poured tens of millions of {dollars} to help the conservative candidate, Decide Brad Schimel.
The promise of giving out $2 million brought about important controversy main as much as the occasion.
Earlier that day, Wisconsin Lawyer Common Josh Kaul (D) requested the state’s prime court docket to dam Musk from gifting away the checks at his city corridor, arguing they have been “illegal payments” to purchase votes. Kaul’s enchantment got here after decrease courts declined to dam the giveaways as an unlawful bribe to voters.
Musk offered the checks to Nicholas Jacobs and Ekaterina Diestler on Sunday night.
