Elon Musk’s support of Donald Trump took a radical turn over the weekend when the tech billionaire’s mother seemingly encouraged her followers to commit voter fraud after her son reminded his audience on X to register to vote.
“Super important to get all your friends and family to register to vote,” the Tesla CEO’s post read. “Georgia’s registration deadline is Monday!!”
His mother, Maye Musk, then responded to her son by suggesting Trump supporters should violate voting laws.
“The Democrats have given us another option. You don’t have to register to vote,” she wrote on the app Saturday. “On Election Day, have 10 fake names, go to 10 polling booths and vote 10 times. That’s 100 votes, and it’s not illegal. Maybe we should work the system too.”
Her comments echoed suggestions made by Trump in 2020, when he told voters to illegally vote more than once, urging North Carolina residents to cast a ballot once by mail and once in person.
Maye’s post, which garnered more than 3.7 million views, received massive backlash, with X users tagging the FBI and the Federal Election Commission.
“This woman is inciting people to break election laws. DO SOMETHING,” one response read.
The post was ultimately flagged with a community note explaining “This is, in fact, illegal.” along with a link to the US penal code.
Hours after Maye’s questionable social media remarks, Musk appeared at the former president’s Pennsylvania campaign rally where he claimed to be part of an alt-right conspiracy movement called “Dark MAGA.”
The controversial billionaire’s mother eventually backtracked on her wild voting claims following her son’s campaign event debut. Writing on X: “In Butler, Pennsylvania, we just heard that the Republicans will make sure no illegals vote. Ignore my previous post.”
Ahead of the 2024 election, the GOP has pushed false claims about non-citizens voting illegally for Democrats to justify purging voter rolls. Right-wing efforts to raise doubt about election integrity rose to prominence in 2020 when Trump allies began peddling untrue narratives about “widespread voter fraud” in the election won by President Joe Biden.
Noncitizen voting in US elections is extremely rare, with even the Heritage Foundation’s database listing fewer than 100 cases from 2002 to 2022, out of more than 1 billion lawfully cast ballots.
