Tech billionaire Elon Musk handed out oversized $1 million checks to two attendees of his town hall in Wisconsin on Sunday evening, saying the stunt is cheaper and more effective than paying for the same amount of media coverage.
“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 said on stage at the town hall, before giving out the large 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” without distributing the checks, Musk said.
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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 give checks to two members of the audience, all of whom were required to sign his petition against so-called “activist judges” in order to get a seat at the event.
The town hall was held in advance of Tuesday’s critical Wisconsin Supreme Court race, into which Musk and his America PAC have poured millions of dollars to support the conservative candidate, Judge Brad Schimel.
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The promise of giving out $2 million caused significant controversy leading up to the event.
Earlier that day, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) asked the state’s top court to block Musk from giving away the checks at his town hall, arguing they were “illegal payments” to buy votes. Kaul’s appeal came after lower courts declined to block the giveaways as an illegal bribe to voters.
Musk presented the checks to Nicholas Jacobs and Ekaterina Diestler on Sunday evening.
