The Wisconsin Elections Commission, a bipartisan body of three Democrats and three Republicans, voted 5-1 in closed session to find probable cause that Elon Musk violated the state's election bribery law during the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and referred two complaints to the Brown County district attorney, who can bring criminal charges. Prosecutors have 40 days to report back.
The conduct at issue: Musk, then a top Trump adviser working to flip the court's majority, made a social media post that, in the commission's words, “offered one million dollars to individuals who voted in the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court election in order to induce them to vote in that election.” He handed out two $1 million checks at a Green Bay rally days before the vote, and separately offered $100 payments to registered voters who signed a petition against “activist judges.” Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul tried to block the giveaway at the time; courts, including the state supreme court, declined to stop it.
Musk and the groups he backed spent at least $20 million supporting the Republican-backed candidate, Brad Schimel, in what became the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history at over $100 million. Schimel lost to Susan Crawford by 10 points. The complaints, filed by voters in Milwaukee and Green Bay, are confidential under state law; the referral went to Brown County DA David Lasee because the checks were handed out there.
A finding of probable cause by a bipartisan commission that the world's richest man likely committed election bribery on behalf of the Trump-aligned candidate is not a partisan accusation; it is the state's own referral mechanism working as designed (see Musk's America PAC Faces Voter Fraud Allegations in Georgia After Canvassers Reportedly Fabricated Door-Knock Data).
On August 7, 2026, Brown County District Attorney David Lasee announced that his office had a conflict of interest in the matter and requested a special prosecutor, without specifying what the conflict was. La Crosse County District Attorney Tim Gruenke was assigned to take the case over. The 40-day window that followed the July 14 referral passed without a charging decision from Brown County.