Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Friday that all voting must take place “in person,” contradicting his own history of voting by mail and his pro-Trump super PAC’s efforts to get others to vote by mail as well.
At a large-scale town hall event in Oaks, Pennsylvania, where Musk is campaigning for former President Donald Trump, Musk said he was concerned about possible voter fraud unless people cast their ballots in a specific way: on paper, in person and with a form. of identification.
“In my opinion, we should only have paper ballots. It must be in-person voting with ID. End of story,” Musk said, according to a livestream of the event.
The crowd cheered and applauded Musk’s response, which came after he promoted a debunked conspiracy theory involving voting machine company Dominion Voting Systems during a town hall event on Thursday. Musk said Thursday that Dominion was part of a plot to rig elections, an accusation the company disputed and which is similar to those for which the company has sued others.
Voting by mail or absentee voting has become common in some jurisdictions, and there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the United States, either by mail or otherwise.
Musk, one of the richest people in the world 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 linking to absentee ballot forms, the super PAC calls absentee voting a safe way for people to support Trump in the Nov. 5 election. Musk has given the super PAC almost $75 million.
But Musk’s opposition to mail-in and absentee voting is longstanding, and he has repeatedly refused to resolve his outspoken opposition with his own practice. In an email to NBC News in August, he supported his opposition, writing: “Voting by mail is recognized around the world as an invitation to fraud.”
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 personal 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 Georgia votes were already being “flipped” this year and asked Musk for help.
“Is there a way to have a database on X where we can track all the votes? We’ll all send our votes to you to follow, and then we can see who wins? he asked.
Musk responded that people who may have evidence of voter fraud or irregularities should post it on his social media app X so others can support or debunk it.
Musk, standing on a podium with an American flag behind him, answered questions from audience members for nearly two hours. The topics of the questions varied widely, from business advice and video games to national birth rates and the power of big tech companies.
It was Musk’s second town hall event in Pennsylvania in as many days, and he has at least two others planned in the battleground state, including one Saturday evening in Harrisburg, according to his super PAC’s website.
Musk repeated several false conspiracy theories that have become a regular topic of conversation for him on social media, including the baseless idea that Democrats are bringing immigrants without permanent legal status to swing states to cast votes. He baselessly claimed that California doesn’t have “any meaningful elections,” and he said X had suspended “not a single account on the left,” even though X suspended a journalist last month after publishing a document that appeared to have been stolen of Trump’s campaign by hackers linked to Iran.
One audience member asked Musk whether, as a potential future adviser in a second Trump term, he would consider hiring Scott Presler, a conservative activist who has helped spread several conspiracy theories, including one about QAnon.
“Absolutely, yes,” Musk replied.
At another point, Musk appeared to make a joke about the attack on the US Capitol on January 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 at the Capitol the day before the attack.
“Well, maybe he’s a federal employee,” Musk said before bursting into laughter. Some spectators also laughed.
The FBI said earlier this year that a $500,000 reward would remain in place for information leading to the arrest of whoever planted the pipe bombs.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
