Elon Musk talks immigration, voting and freedom of speech in first of Pennsylvania voter town halls

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk participates in a town hall-style meeting to promote early and absentee voting at Ridley High School on October 17, 2024 in Folsom, Delaware County. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Tesla CEO and X (formerly known as Twitter) owner Elon Musk on Thursday held the first of what he said will be several town halls across Pennsylvania focused on voter turnout, at a high school in Delaware County. The series of town halls is hosted by America PAC, which is a pro-Donald Trump organization founded by Musk.

“It’s very clear to me that Donald Trump has to win this election,” Musk told the audience at Ridley High School in Folsom.

He said the election could be decided by a very small number of votes in Pennsylvania — “it could be 10,000 votes, it could be 1,000 votes, it could be 10 votes, it could be some very tiny number. So every incremental person is a huge difference.”

Musk said he has not been “politically active” before. “I’m politically active now because I think the future of America and the future of civilization is at stake.”

Musk, who has been a vocal supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign over the past few months, joined Trump on stage at a rally in Butler on Oct. 5. Musk and Trump have said he’d campaign for the former president across Pennsylvania, with Trump suggesting during remarks at the New York Economic Club last month that he would create a government efficiency commission which Musk would lead.

Musk stood on stage for roughly an hour Thursday, taking questions from audience members and airing familiar complaints about government regulation, crime in San Francisco and other cities, immigration, and one of his favorite topics, freedom of speech.

“The reason they have the First Amendment was because the countries people came from, if you spoke your mind, you’d be imprisoned or killed. That’s why you have it,” Musk said, claiming he was being “attacked” for freedom of speech. “And then the right to bear arms is also really important. That’s there to protect … the Second Amendment is there to protect the First Amendment. As soon as the government can disarm the people, they can do anything they want.”

Musk said he visited the U.S. border and claimed it “looks like World War Z, OK, it’s like a zombie apocalypse.” He added that “if you don’t have a border, you don’t have a country,” while noting “as someone who’s an immigrant, I’m pro-immigrant, I just want to be sure that people who come here are going to be assets to society.”

Audience Q&A

Audience members mostly appeared to be Musk fans, praising his companies Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink. He donned a gold “Make America Great Again” hat at one point and even invited a child onstage for an autograph and a selfie near the end of the program.

An audience member who said she immigrated to the U.S. from Malaysia said she supports Trump but was “frustrated and it’s all because of the cheating. So what are we going to do with that?”

She did not specify what “cheating” she was referring to, but Musk said he believed “some amount of cheating takes place,” and blamed mail-in ballots.

“When you have mail-in ballots and no sort of proof of citizenship, it becomes almost impossible to prove cheating is the issue,” he said, adding his preference was for paper ballots. “I’m a technologist. I know a lot of our computers, and I’m like, the last thing I would do is trust a computer program, because it’s just too easy to hack. It’s too easy to add just one line, and it’s really difficult to hack paper ballots.”

During a video call with state Senate Democrats on Monday, Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt explained that in Pennsylvania there is a voter verified paper ballot record of every vote cast in every election, “whether you vote using hand marked paper ballot at your polling place or a ballot marking device at your polling place, or vote by mail, there’s a paper ballot record that the voter has verified. That’s used in two audits after every election to ensure that the tabulated results are accurate.”

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Asked Thursday what he would prioritize if Trump did put him in charge of government efficiency, Musk said he would not just focus on reducing the size of government, but rather, creating sufficient incentives.

Musk likened it to a “properly functioning company” or a sports team: those who perform well are rewarded and those who do not are forced to exit.

One of the audience members who asked for Musk’s assistance identified himself as Greg Stenstrom, a Delaware County-based conspiracy theorist who co-authored the book “The Parallel Election: A Blueprint for Deception,” which alleged massive fraud in Pennsylvania’s 2020 election. He claimed Thursday to have evidence of voting machine fraud, and said he was training poll workers to look for fraud.

Multiple lawsuits found no evidence of systematic or widespread fraud in 2020, in Pennsylvania or any other state.

After some members of the audience appeared to be arguing with Stenstrom, Musk tried to cool the temperature in the room, and made a suggestion.

“What I recommend is to post content on the X platform,” and let people judge for themselves, he said. “If you have videos or evidence, then post them publicly on social media.”

Seemingly pinpointing the mixed messaging from Republicans on mail ballots, one of the final speakers asked Musk whether he should wait until Election Day to vote in person or vote by a mail-in ballot right now.

“You should vote immediately, right now,” Musk responded.

But are the town halls legal?

“Currently, I have 3 talks scheduled in Pennsylvania, but will probably do half a dozen throughout the state,” Musk wrote on X early Thursday morning.

Harrisburg and Pittsburgh are also listed on the PAC’s website for upcoming town halls, although no dates and times were available as of Thursday evening. There is one town hall scheduled for Philadelphia on Friday evening.

In order to attend one of Musk’s town hall events, participants must be a registered voter in Pennsylvania and have to sign a petition which states that “the First and Second Amendments guarantee freedom of speech and the right to bear arms. By signing below, I am pledging my support for the First and Second Amendments.” Those who sign the petition receive $47 for each registered voter they refer who also signs the petition.

Campaign finance records show that Musk gave around $75 million to America PAC . According to the PAC’s website, it was created to “support candidates who champion Secure Borders, Sensible Spending, Safe Cities, Fair Justice System, Free Speech and Self-Protection.”

Almost immediately after Musk announced the town halls, questions surfaced about whether or not the requirements to be admitted to the events were in violation of election law.

On Oct. 26, Musk posted to X that “Tomorrow night through Monday, I will be giving a series of talks throughout Pennsylvania. If you’d like to attend one of my talks, there’s no attendance fee. You just need to have signed our petition supporting free speech & right to bear arms & have voted in this election.”

However, on the PAC’s website, the requirements listed on Thursday afternoon did not include the requirement that they “have voted in this election,” but instead asked people “how do you plan to vote?”

“Federal law makes clear that you cannot provide financial incentives for someone to vote or not to vote in a federal election,” Philadelphia election lawyer Adam Bonin told the Capital-Star on Thursday before the town hall meeting.

He provided an example of a shop offering a free drink if a voter showed up with an “I voted” sticker as an example that actually does break the law.

“Obviously it seems innocent on the smaller levels, but it’s important to make clear that a decision to vote or not to vote or who to vote for is a decision that’s freely and voluntarily given,” Bonin said.

“Looks like he’s modified from his initial tweet, although that tweet is still up,” Bonin added. “What he has right now is legal, asking people to sign a petition and to show that they are registered to vote. Those are lawful incentives.”

Bonin said he’s glad the language is tweaked on the website as opposed to what Musk stated on social media, however he added that he wishes “wealthy people didn’t have this much influence on our politics, regardless of what side they’re on, but as long as they do, they’ve got to exercise their power legally.”

“It appears to be legal now,” Bonin said.

Campaigns hitting the home stretch

The Philadelphia suburbs have been home to several high profile campaign events over the past few days.

On Monday, Trump hosted a town hall in Montgomery County , although he only answered five audience questions before cutting the event short after two medical emergencies in the audience.  Trump then stood on stage for approximately 30 minutes swaying along to songs from his playlist.

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, was in Bucks County on Wednesday for a speech focused on winning over disaffected Republicans .

On Thursday night, another town hall event was added to the America PAC website, on Friday in Philadelphia. Details on the location were not included.

Oct. 21 is Pennsylvania’s voter registration deadline for the Nov. 5 general election. The deadline to apply for a mail-in or absentee ballot is Oct. 29.

This article was updated at 9 p.m. Oct. 17, 2024 with details from Musk’s town hall in Delaware County

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