Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Friday that all voting should be “in person,” contradicting his own history of voting by mail and the efforts of his pro-Trump super PAC to get others to vote by mail, too.
During a wide-ranging town hall event in Oaks, Pennsylvania, where Musk is campaigning for former President Donald Trump, Musk said he was concerned about potential voter fraud unless people cast ballots in a specific way: on paper, in person and with a form of identification.
“In my opinion, we should have paper ballots only. It should be in-person voting with ID. End of story,” Musk said, according to a livestream of the event.
The audience cheered and applauded Musk’s answer, which came after he promoted a debunked conspiracy theory related to the voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems at a Thursday town hall event. Musk said Thursday that Dominion was part of a plot to rig elections, an allegation the company disputed and that’s similar to one that the company has sued others over.
Voting by mail or absentee ballot has become commonplace in some jurisdictions, and there’s no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the United States, either by mail or other means.
Musk, one of the world’s wealthiest people and the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, voted by mail in the 2016 and 2018 general elections, according to California state records of his voting history obtained by NBC News in August.
His super PAC, America PAC, is also promoting mail-in and absentee ballots this year. In mailers and on a website that links to absentee ballot request forms, the super PAC calls absentee voting a secure way for people to support Trump in the Nov. 5 election. Musk has given the super PAC nearly $75 million.
But Musk’s opposition to mail-in and absentee voting is longstanding, and he has repeatedly declined to resolve his stated opposition with his own practice. In an email to NBC News in August, he stood by his opposition and wrote: “Voting by mail has been recognized as an invitation to fraud throughout the world.”
A spokesperson for America PAC did not immediately respond to a request for comment after Friday’s town hall event.
Musk brought up the topic of in-person voting in response to an audience member’s question about how to “stop the steal,” a reference to Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election. The audience member, who did not give his name, said without evidence that he believed votes in Georgia this year were already being “flipped” and he asked for Musk’s help.
“Is there a way to have a database on X where we can track all the votes? We all send our votes to you to track it, and then we can tell who wins?” he asked.
Musk responded that people who have possible evidence of voter fraud or irregularities should post it to his social media app X for others to either support or debunk.
Musk, standing on a stage with an American flag behind him, answered questions from audience members for nearly two hours. The question topics varied widely, from business advice and video games to national birth rates and the power of large tech companies.
It was the second town hall event in Pennsylvania in as many days for Musk, and he has at least two others planned in the battleground state, including one Saturday night in Harrisburg, according to the website of his super PAC.
Musk repeated several false conspiracy theories that have become frequent talking points for him on social media, including the unfounded idea that Democrats are bringing immigrants lacking permanent legal status into swing states in order to cast ballots. He alleged without basis that California does not have “any meaningful elections,” and he said that X had not suspended “a single account on the left,” although last month X suspended a journalist after he published a document that appeared to be stolen from Trump’s campaign by hackers tied to Iran.
One audience member asked Musk if he, as a potential future adviser in a second Trump term, would consider hiring Scott Presler, a conservative activist who has helped spread various conspiracy theories including about QAnon.
“Absolutely, yes,” Musk responded.
At another point, Musk appeared to make a joke about the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — at the expense of government workers. An audience member asked Musk why no one had been charged in connection with two pipe bombs left near the Capitol the day before the attack.
“Well, maybe he’s a federal employee,” Musk said, before bursting out in laughter. Some audience members laughed, too.
The FBI said earlier this year that a $500,000 reward remained in effect for information leading to the arrest of whoever placed the pipe bombs.
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