Elon Musk Barnstorms Pennsylvania, Leveraging X Platform for Trump
The world's richest man has held four rallies in the linchpin state of Pennsylvania over the past four days.
PITTSBURGH, Oct. 20, 2024 – Elon Musk is using his X communications platform to livestream solo Town Hall rallies for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in the swing state of Pennsylvania, and multiple millions of X followers have attended.
He's also awarded $1 million/day award prizes, per selected person, for individual voters that have signed a pledge of support of his America super PAC. The $1 million/day prizes for selected voters are in addition to an award of $47 per referral of registered voters ($100 per person in the case of Pennsylvania registered voters), promised by the super PAC.
The program's legality has been questioned by election law experts, and the referral prizes are open exclusively to registered voters in the seven swing states, with a deadline of Monday, Oct. 21, at 11:59 p.m:
Musk, the world's richest man, held his first solo event in support of Donald Trump for president on Thursday, from Folsom in the Philadelphia suburbs.
He followed with a Philadelphia event on Friday, and a Saturday event in state capital Harrisburg. The first of the $1 million/day award prizes was announced on Saturday, and nother $1 million prize was promised on Sunday from Pittsburgh.
The America PAC, a super political action committee Musk launched in May to aid Trump in his bid to return to the White House, is encouraging people to sign its "petition in favor of free speech and the right to bear arms."
Associated Press
At the Thursday event, Musk encouraged voters to register to cast their ballots and vote early.
The Thursday America PAC event at Ridley High School's auditorium in Folsom featured Musk in front of a large U.S. flag for roughly 15 minutes before taking questions from the crowd, many of whom wore “Make America Great Again” hats.
The event was billed as a call to action to vote early in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, where Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris are fiercely contesting the election.
Some in the crowd questioned Musk's entreaties to vote early, reflecting the possibility that Republicans are still persuading their supporters to embrace early voting after Trump spent years demonizing the method.
The crowd rose to its feet and took cellphone videos as Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and Space X and owner of the social media platform X, walked onstage. They remained standing during his remarks and cheered loudly after he said the U.S. Constitution needs to be upheld.
“This is literally the fundamental values that made America what it is today. And anyone who is against those things is fundamentally anti-American and to hell with them,” said Musk, who was born in South Africa. The crowd erupted.
'Fate of Western civilization'
"I'm here for a very important reason, which is – I can't emphasize this enough – Pennsylvania, I think, is the linchpin in this election," Musk told the crowd at Ridley High School. "This election, I think, is going to decide the fate of America, and along with the fate of America, the fate of Western civilization."
Musk's town hall on Sunday in Pittsburgh was his second stop in Western Pennsylvania in recent weeks, in addition to this weekend's barnstorm.
On Oct. 5, Musk, donning a MAGA hat, appeared on stage during Trump's rally in Butler County nearly three months after an assassination attempt on the former president.
Musk's America PAC has spent more than $119 million during the 2024 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets, a non-profit political finance tracker.
Urging extensive new voter registration
Musk exhorted the Folsom crowd to make sure they and their friends and family were registered to vote and to “pester” those who weren't. Toward the end of the question period, which included more than a dozen from those in the audience, he was asked to explain whether people should vote early in Pennsylvania.
He said people should vote immediately.
Trump for years has sowed doubt about mail and early voting by claiming it was rife with fraud, though voter fraud is rare in the United States. This year, Republicans are making a renewed push to encourage their supporters to vote early and lock in their ballots, though they acknowledge skepticism from those conditioned by Trump’s false claims.
At the Harrisburg event on Saturday, at least hundreds of thousands of people attended on X. At the Pittsburgh event, more than 2 million people attended on X.
Musk is undertaking much of the get-out-the-vote effort for Trump through his America PAC, a super PAC that can raise and spend unlimited sums of money. He has committed more than $70 million to the super PAC to help Trump and other Republicans win in November.
Trump and the Republican National Committee he controls opted for an unorthodox strategy of sharing canvassing duties in key regions with groups like Musk’s. They’ve also focused their efforts not on independent or moderate voters, but on those who already support Trump but usually don’t vote.
Associated Press writers Mike Catalini from Pittsburgh and Stephen Groves from Washington contributed to this report by Broadband Breakfast.
