Elon Musk has been campaigning hard for Donald Trump, in an effort to get his fellow billionaire re-elected President. A big part of Musk’s political strategy thus far has been to rile up conservative voter blocs with rightwing, anti-Democrat conspiracy theories and misinformation. During a campaign event in the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania, Musk recently gestured at a well-known (and, as some former Trump compatriots have discovered, highly libelous ) conspiracy theory: that the use of voting machines sold by Dominion Voting Systems is, somehow, a questionable idea.
Apparently not deterred by the fact that the last people who accused the electioneering company of wrongdoing found themselves in a years-long litigation battle that ended in a $787 million payout , Musk waded cautiously into dangerous rhetorical waters during a town hall-style event in Folsom, Pennsylvania on Thursday. When asked by an audience member about the issue of voter fraud, Musk took a brief detour into his favorite place: conspiracy-land. “When you have mail-in ballots and no proof of citizenship, it’s almost impossible to prove cheating,” Musk said, in response to the audience member’s question.
He then added: “Statistically there are some very strange things that happen that are statistically incredibly unlikely. There’s always this question of, say, the Dominion voting machines. It is weird that, I think, they were used in Philadelphia and in Maricopa County [in Arizona] but not.