David Crowley, the Democratic nominee for governor of Wisconsin, said at an event Tuesday in Madison that he's "kind of befuddled" by the decision of the La Crosse County district attorney not to charge Elon Musk with election bribery over the two $1 million checks he gave to voters during Wisconsin's 2025 state Supreme Court race.
In July, the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 5-1 to refer two complaints to the Brown County District Attorney's office, alleging that Musk's handouts — which he announced went to people who could prove they had already voted in the election — amounted to bribery.
During the 2025 election, Musk pumped more than $20 million into the race on behalf of conservative Brad Schimel. Schimel lost to Justice Susan Crawford partially because of backlash to Musk's involvement at the peak of opposition to his DOGE effort to cut federal government spending for President Donald Trump.
La Crosse County DA Tim Gruenke was appointed as a special prosecutor to decide if charges should be brought against Musk, the world's richest man.
In a letter released Tuesday, Gruenke said that while Musk posted on X, the platform he owns, that the checks he handed out at a political rally in Green Bay would go to people who had cast absentee ballots, he said in a later post that entrance to the rally was limited to people who had signed a petition opposing "activist judges."
"In this case, without the famous name attached and the large dollar amounts involved, it is a simple case of a poorly worded statement that was corrected and brought into compliance with the law," Gruenke wrote. "Because the original post was poorly worded and ambiguous about who would receive money, and the second post corrected the problem relatively quickly, I do not believe a jury would convict Elon Musk of a crime."
At the Tuesday event, Crowley said he hadn't read Gruenke's reasoning but that Musk had "publicly talked about giving a million dollars to folks to actually go vote, which is absolutely against the law in Wisconsin."
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