Elon Musk, the technology juggernaut and billionaire, has shown interest in the upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court race. On Thursday, January 23rd Musk posted on his X (formerly Twitter) account saying: “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!”
Musk’s interest in the upcoming race garnered a lot of attention, as his post on X received over 15 million views. Musk, who purchased Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion dollars and transformed it into the social media platform now known as X, has taken strong political stances in the past few months. Although he gained prominence as the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, Musk has closely aligned himself with the incoming Trump administration. In the 2024 election cycle, Musk spent $20 million dollars in funding for the America PAC.
The Supreme Court is often championed as being a nonpartisan institution. However, in the past few years, privately funded political organizations have spent millions of dollars financing state Supreme Court races. This spending reached a peak in Wisconsin, when the 2023 Supreme Court race became the most expensive judicial election in history. The 2023 race between Janet Protasiewicz and Daniel Kelly led to nearly $45 million dollars in spending. Protasiewicz had identified herself as a liberal, while Kelly identified as a conservative. Protasiewicz’s campaign received over $8 million dollars from the Wisconsin Democratic Party, while Kelly received over $700,000 from the Wisconsin Republican Party. Protasiewicz won the election, flipping the court to a primarily liberal voting base.
The spring 2024 Supreme Court election will be held on April 1, 2025. The race is being held due to current Justice Ann Bradley’s retirement. Bradley has identified as a liberal, meaning that her retirement opens up the possibility that the slight liberal majority could be turned conservative. Susan Crawford is running as the liberal candidate, while Brad Schimel is running as the conservative candidate.
Musk’s tweet came just a few days after Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025. After the inauguration, Musk received negative public attention when an odd arm gesture appeared to emulate a fascist salute. The next day, Wisconsin CBS 58 weather reporter Sam Kuffel was fired from her position for social media posts about the gesture. Kuffel posted several memes that were considered vulgar, as reported by Dan O’Donnell.
At the moment, Musk has not yet made it clear whether he plans to donate to the upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court race.