October 18, 2024
Jasper Colt/USA TODAY NETWORK
Elon Musk has been campaigning heavily in Pennsylvania on behalf of Donald Trump. On Friday night, he'll host a town hall at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Oaks, Montgomery County. Above, Musk is pictured with Trump at an Oct. 5 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Elon Musk, the world's richest man, will be at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center in Montgomery County on Friday night for his second town hall in as many days to stump for Donald Trump in next month's presidential election. The billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX was in Delaware County on Thursday night for a Q&A session at Ridley High School in Folsom.
The town hall series is part of an aggressive push to boost Republican voter registration ahead of Monday's deadline in Pennsylvania. The battleground state has been criss-crossed with campaign events by both parties in recent days and weeks.
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Musk and his $75 million, pro-Trump America PAC are organizing the town halls in Pennsylvania with a focus on increasing early and mail-in voting for Trump. Friday night's event in Oaks follows Trump's appearance Monday at the same venue, where a Q&A with the former president was cut short after two people fainted and organizers instead played music for the crowd while Trump danced for about 40 minutes.
America PAC said "space is very limited" for Friday's 7 p.m. town hall. The event is free to attend, but tickets are only offered to those who complete several online forms that require submitting a phone number, home address and email address to be verified by America PAC. Thursday night's town hall was streamed on X, formerly Twitter, and on FOX29.
In his remarks in Delaware County, Musk claimed his outspoken advocacy for Trump is a response to pivotal issues in the upcoming election that he said will shape the future of the country.
"I haven't been politically active before," Musk, 53, told the audience as a he stood in front of a large American flag. "I'm politically active now because I think the future of America and the future of civilization is at stake."
Musk spent about an hour with the crowd in Delaware County. He answered questions about immigration, the economy and how he would work with Trump to target government waste. He also made a number of false claims about election integrity, dredging up debunked conspiracies about voting irregularities in Pennsylvania and Arizona during the 2020 presidential election. When one person asked how Republicans can combat "cheating," Musk wrongly stated that Philadelphia used machines made by Dominion Voting Systems, the company Trump and his allies baselessly accused of rigging the election after he lost to Joe Biden.
America PAC has poured millions of dollars into seven swing states, hoping to boost Republican turnout by dangling money to people who help get others registered to vote. Musk raised eyebrows — and legal questions — by offering $47 for each referral made that results in a registered voter in those states.
To attend the town halls in Pennsylvania, America PAC requires signing a petition in support of the First and Second Amendments before entering personal information on a second form for a chance to get a ticket. The petition includes a "special offer" for registered Pennsylvania voters to receive $100 simply for signing it, plus another $100 for referring someone else to do so. Musk touted the offer on X, but America PAC does not spell out details about how and when such payments will be made.
Attendance at Musk's town halls also requires presenting a government ID with a ticket at the entrance. Despite the petition's emphasis on the right to bear arms, America PAC's ticket confirmation notes in a text message that firearms and weapons of any kind are not allowed, and prohibited items surrendered upon entry won't be returned.
The town hall requirements could be legally murky based on federal election law. Although America PAC's money offers for voter registration referrals fall within the law, Musk's promotions saying that town hall attendees "need to have voted in Pennsylvania" in this election might cross a line, according to Rick Hasen of the Election Law Blog.
"This is likely illegal, because in a federal election one cannot give anything of value in exchange for someone agreeing to turn out to vote," Hasen wrote. "It is not necessary to offer that a person vote for or against a particular candidate. ... Just like one cannot give out free ice cream or car washes or concert tickets, one cannot give out free admission to hear a speech by a tech entrepreneur."
Contrary to what Musk said Tuesday, America PAC's sign-up form for his town halls states that attendees need only be registered to vote in Pennsylvania — not to have voted already.
Musk, who briefly lived in Philadelphia while attending the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, has additional town halls scheduled in Harrisburg on Saturday night and in Pittsburgh at a date to be announced.
The town hall in Oaks targets voters in a county that has seen a decades-long shift in favor of Democrats. The event comes ahead of a planned Sunday appearance by Trump at a McDonald's in Bucks County, the only majority-Republican county surrounding Philadelphia. Vice President Kamala Harris was at Washington Crossing Historic Park on Wednesday for an invite-only campaign stop attended by Republicans in Bucks County who plan to vote for her in November. Harris later sat down with FOX News' Bret Baier for an interview that covered immigration, her record in the Biden administration and Trump's criticism of her campaign.
At Thursday's town hall, Musk told the crowd that he intends to support a Trump presidency by working with him to create a Department of Government Efficiency. When one attendee asked how he would streamline government, Musk talked about the goals of his own business ventures — specifically SpaceX, which is a major contractor for NASA — and mentioned his quest to build a space fleet capable of reaching and colonizing Mars in the future.
"If the current trend of strangulation by overregulation is not turned around, we will never get to Mars. It just will be illegal. And then we'll be a one-planet civilization," Musk said. "There won't be a space-faring civilization and Star Fleet will never be real. And we want Star Fleet to be real."
