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Pa. AG's office won't take further action on 2024 complaints of mysterious $100 checks from Elon Musk's America PAC

Fallon Roth, The Philadelphia Inquirer on

Published in Political News

PHILADELPHIA — The Pennsylvania Attorney General Office’s Bureau of Consumer Protections won’t be taking further action on the complaints made by more than a dozen Pennsylvanians who received unsolicited $100 checks following the 2024 presidential election that appeared to be from billionaire Elon Musk’s pro-Donald Trump America PAC.

“We received several complaints regarding the $100 checks, reviewed them and deemed no further action was required,” Brett Hambright, a spokesperson for Attorney General Dave Sunday’s office, said in a statement Thursday.

The Inquirer reported in December that the AG’s office received approximately 20 complaints from Pennsylvanians who said they received the mysterious $100 checks from Musk’s PAC without signing any forms.

During the heated 2024 presidential campaign, as Musk trained his efforts on delivering Pennsylvania for Trump, America PAC offered cash prizes to swing-state voters, including a $100 “special offer” for those in Pennsylvania who signed a petition avowing their support of the First and Second Amendments.

But at least 18 Pennsylvania voters from various counties, many of whom were Democrats, told The Inquirer they received a check without signing the petition or without knowledge of friends or family members signing them up.

The checks, many of which were received in the days leading up to and after the 2024 presidential election, included an address for “United States of America Inc.,” the name of a holding company established by Musk, now Trump’s billionaire adviser.

In late 2024, a spokesperson for the attorney general’s office said the nature of the complaints would determine the next steps for the BCP. After that, complaints were reviewed as they came in, and there are currently no more issues to be reviewed, the spokesperson said Friday.

 

If the office receives new complaints regarding the checks, those will be evaluated, the spokesperson added.

When BCP receives a consumer complaint, the bureau will typically attempt to mediate the issue, according to the Pennsylvania AG’s website. The bureau will only take legal action when it’s believed that a business is engaging in illegal activity and it’s in the “public interest” to address it. “Public interest” includes “practice of fraud, an important question of law, a significant number of consumer victims, a significant amount of money at risk or a variety of other things.”

The check “special offer” and the petition were some of the strategies Musk used to secure Trump’s victory in the critical battleground of Pennsylvania in November. Following Trump’s win, Musk was appointed the figurehead of the newly-established Department of Government Efficiency, which has led a major upheaval throughout the federal government, though he may step back in the coming weeks, Politico reported. On the Musk-owned platform X this week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote that Musk will depart from his role at DOGE when his work “is complete.”

And while some say they received Musk’s PAC’s money without asking for it, at least one Pennsylvania resident alleged this week that he’s still waiting to be paid for his efforts.

Earlier this week, a complaint was filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on behalf of an unnamed Bucks County resident who alleged Musk and America PAC of owing him more than $20,000 for soliciting signatures for the America PAC petition while he was canvassing for the political action committee ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

_____


©2025 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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