Elon Musk’s election talk sparked concern in swing state, emails reveal
Al Jazeera
Musk’s claims made in social media posts about US vote worried officials in Pennsylvania.
Elon Musk’s claims of voting fraud in the United States presidential election prompted a flurry of concerned correspondence to election officials in a key swing state, newly released emails reveal.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO’s commentary on X prompted a Republican state senator and others in Pennsylvania, the most important battleground state with 19 Electoral College votes, to contact the top election official in one district to discuss concerns about overseas voting, according to the emails, which provide new insight into the billionaire’s behind-the-scenes effect on the vote.
The office of Senator Chris Gebhard in October contacted the director of elections for Lebanon County, a heavily Republican district located northwest of Philadelphia, to express the lawmaker’s “concerns with what is being communicated” about the November 5 election, the emails show.
“Can you help us out by giving us a statement? I dropped off one of the emails,” Daniel Bost, an aide to Gebhard, wrote in an October 10 email to Sean Drasher.
Bost provided Drasher with a “printout” of an X post by Musk by way of illustrating the senator’s concerns, according to an email Drasher sent to a state-level election official seeking advice on how to respond to the lawmaker.
