A Democratic political action committee has filed a complaint against former President Donald Trump and the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, alleging that an Aug. 12 interview between Trump and X owner Elon Musk violated Federal Election Commission regulations.
Trump and Musk spoke for roughly two hours on Monday evening during an event that was delayed by 40 minutes due to technical issues. In his questioning,
Musk, who endorsed Trump last month, allowed him to attack Democratic opponent Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden without any pushback on issues like the economy and tense foreign relations. Trump repeated many of the same stories about his presidency he tells on the campaign trail.
Malfunction junction:Elon Musk chats up Donald Trump amid X tech glitches
PAC: Fixing tech glitches = illegal campaign contribution
The PAC, End Citizens United, alleges that Musk’s advocacy for Trump’s campaign and his use of company resources to resolve the livestream’s tech glitch amounted to an illegal corporate campaign contribution.
“The Donald Trump-Elon Musk campaign rally hosted on X wasn’t just an incoherent diatribe of lies marred by technical difficulties it was a blatantly illegal corporate contribution to Donald Trump’s campaign,” End Citizens United President Tiffany Muller said in a statement urging the FEC to investigate the event. “This brazen corporate contribution undermines campaign finance laws and would set a dangerous precedent for unfettered, direct corporate engagement in campaigns.”
The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 prohibits corporations from making contributions to federal candidates, and prevents said candidates from accepting the contributions.
The PAC’s name is a reference to a controversial 2010 Supreme Court ruling known as Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which opened the floodgates to unlimited campaign spending, often by anonymous groups, corporations and unions. However, the ruling still prohibits corporations from formally coordinating with political campaigns, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
“Here—the considerable resources of X to host Trump’s campaign event, including dedicating real-time staff to address technical difficulties specifically for the campaign event and the time of its owner to participate in the event—are of significant value to the Trump Campaign,” the complaint reads.
X not protected by media exemption, complaint says
The complaint also argues that X’s activity is not protected by the law’s exemption for media organizations.
“Even if X were a press entity, the owner’s hosting a livestream event with a candidate featuring express advocacy is a departure from these usual hosting-and-content-moderation functions,” the complaint reads.
“X was not acting in its legitimate press function because hosting livestream campaign events is not ‘comparable in form’ to X’s regular activities,” the complaint continues.
Neither the Trump campaign nor X responded to a request for comment.
Read the full complaint:
Maya Homan is a 2024 election fellow at USA TODAY who focuses on Georgia politics. She is @MayaHoman on X, formerly Twitter.
