Elon Musk handed out two $1 million checks and a warning Sunday evening in Green Bay, Wisconsin, ahead of the Badger State’s pivotal Supreme Court election.
The left lost its collective mind — again — as the billionaire tech titan and close adviser to President Donald Trump walked on the town hall stage in a yellow cheesehead hat before a glowing American flag backdrop not long after the liberal-led Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to take up a lawsuit attempting to stop Musk from giving out any more big checks.
Tuesday’s election will not only determine ideological control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court but will likely play an outsized role in national politics in next year’s midterms.
Musk said Wisconsin voters need to know just how critical the election is.
“What’s happening on Tuesday is a vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives, and whichever party controls the House, to a significant degree, controls the country, and steers the course of western civilization,” Musk said.
No doubt swing state Wisconsin’s high court race is a high-stakes election.
‘Razor Thin’
Big-money liberals nationwide have pumped in millions of dollars to elect candidate Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge with a far-left legal resume. Musk and his political action committees have spent millions more in support of the conservative candidate, Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, who previously served as Wisconsin attorney general. The contest — pegged to hit $100 million in spending — is expected to be the most costly judicial race in U.S. history, smashing the old spending record held by Wisconsin’s 2023 Supreme Court race. In that $56 million election, liberals took back control of the court for the first time in 15 years. If they win Tuesday, they maintain their 4-3 majority — and the ability to potentially change the geography of the 2026 midterm elections.
As The Federalist has reported, Crawford was the featured guest at a donor advisory call in January with well-heeled liberals. The event was more than a meet-and-greet; it drove home how if Crawford won and the court remained in the hands of the liberals, they could effectively redraw Wisconsin’s congressional maps ahead of next year’s elections. If the liberal court takes up expected lawsuits on the current maps, it is likely they’ll sign off on lines that give Democrats a decided advantage, particularly in Wisconsin’s 1st and 3rd congressional districts. “[W]inning this race could also result in Democrats being able to win two additional US House seats, half the seats needed to win control of the House in 2026,” the email invitation to the fundraiser declared.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) noted the same last week at a Democratic National Committee event.
“The House majority is razor thin. If the [Wisconsin] Supreme Court is able to redraw the districts, they will gerrymander the districts and deprive Wisconsin of two seats on the Republican side,” Musk said to boos from conservatives turning out to Sunday’s packed town hall in Titletown. “And then they will try to stop all of the government reforms that we are doing and we are getting done for you, the American people.”
That is without a doubt the mission of the Democratic Party — however they and their radical activist army can accomplish it. Control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is part of that mission. Activist judges overstepping their authority and nullifying the second branch is another strategy, playing out in a series of legal battles in these opening 100 days of Trump ambitious second term.
‘To Get Attention’
Musk’s America PAC petition drive in “Opposition to Activist Judges” is ostensibly what brought the DOGE whisperer to Green Bay. The petition states that judges “should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas.”
“By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role — interpreting, not legislating,” the petition asserts.
It also offers $100 to registered voters who sign it, and another $100 for those who refer a petition signer. The America PAC has awarded three lucky petition signers a cool million dollars each, including the two winners who received big checks on stage Sunday from Musk.
The SpaceX founder took a page from his political action committee’s $1 million daily giveaways during the 2024 presidential election. He told town hall attendees “it’s really just to get attention.”
“Somewhat inevitably, when I do these things, it causes the legacy media to kind of lose their minds and they’ll run it on every news channel,” Musk said to laughter from the conservative crowd. “And I’m, like, I couldn’t pay them, it would cost 10 times more, you know, to get the kind of coverage that we get.”
The idea, Musk said, is to spread the word about what’s at stake in what The Wall Street Journal has billed “the most important election of 2025.”
‘She Recused’
The cash giveaways certainly have drawn the attention of Democrats like Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, who filed a lawsuit last week asking state courts to stop Musk’s PAC from awarding the million dollar checks in Green Bay. The leftist DA argued that the PAC’s original plan to give $1 million to individuals who voted in the Supreme Court election violated state law prohibiting offers or promises of value in exchange for someone casting a ballot.
But Musk awarded the big prizes to individuals who signed the PAC’s petition. A circuit court declined to hear Kaul’s case, and an appeals court on Friday rejected Kaul’s request for an emergency order. Then on Sunday, just minutes before the town hall started, the Wisconsin Supreme Court pushed aside the attorney general’s bid to block the America PAC initiative.
Interestingly, Kaul defeated Schimel in Wisconsin’s 2018 attorney general election. More interesting, Kaul’s original lawsuit was at first randomly assigned to Crawford in Dane County, according to WisPolitics.com.
“She recused, and the case was assigned to Dane County Judge David Conway, who has endorsed Crawford’s bid for the Supreme Court,” the news outlet reported. “The case was then moved to Columbia County Judge Andrew Voigt, who isn’t listed on either Crawford or conservative Brad Schimel’s endorsement pages as a supporter in the Supreme Court race.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court also refused to take up a motion from the America PAC’s attorneys demanding two of the court’s liberal justices who have campaigned for Crawford recuse themselves from the case.
‘Future of America and Western Civilization’
Protesters demonstrated outside the KI Convention Center, and a few Musk haters apparently slipped into the town hall. As the Tesla CEO talked about the “insane” amount of waste and fraud in the federal government that has been exposed by Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, a couple of hecklers shouted from the crowd.
“It’s inevitable that at least a few [George] Soros operatives would be in the audience,” Musk said, grinning. “Give my regards to George. Say hi to George for me,” he called out to the disruptive crowd members as they apparently were being escorted out.
He also noted the wave of firebombings and other violence at Tesla dealership across the country. He said Democrats claim to be the party of empathy, but liberal activists have been accused of burning Teslas, shooting up dealerships and calling for violence against the president and him.
“I totally understand if you don’t want to buy someone’s product. That’s fine. But don’t blow it up,” Musk said.
Before taking the stage Sunday, Musk commented on a post on X noting the significance of Tuesday’s election in Wisconsin.
“What’s at issue here is control of the US House of Representatives,” he wrote on his social media platform. “This Wisconsin Supreme Court race might decide the future of America and Western Civilization!”
“It’s a big deal.”
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
