How long will his money have enough?
Musk offers $ 100 per signature for petition
21.03.2025 – 6:19 p.m.Reading time: 4 min.
Due to his closeness to US President Trump, Elon Musk influences politics. Its wealth is also helpful. But his commitment is currently expensive.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has been happy to be involved in US politics for several months. As a consultant of President Donald Trump and with his assets, he tries to influence the country’s fortunes – and sometimes also other countries.
His most recent coup: In the US state of Wisconsin, he currently offers $ 100 for every signature under a petition “against activist judges”. Another $ 100, the equivalent of around 92 euros, there is a signature for each mediated signature, Musk’s organization “America Pac” announced on the platform X. In Wisconsin, a judge will be elected for the highest court of the state on April 1. According to US media, Musk supports conservative candidates.
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The organization justifies the step on X with the fact that “activist judges” enforced their personal perspectives and ideas instead of interpreting the laws as they are written. However, US media see other reasons in the maneuver. The campaign should stimulate the choice of conservative candidate Brad Schimel and secure the data of potentially conservative voters at “America Pac”, wrote the “New York Times”. It is not the first time that Musk attracts voters with money.
Last year, he had announced that he would award one million dollars to a registered voter in particularly highly competitive US states until the US election. Several million checks were presented. According to US voting rights, it is forbidden to pay citizens to pay money for voting or registering for it. The US Ministry of Justice expressed a warning, but did not stop the money gifts.
As the richest man in the world, Musk can easily afford this political commitment. But there are first signs that Musk’s star sinks. The paragraphs at Tesla new cars have collapsed worldwide. In 2024, the e-car pioneer for the first time recorded a drop in sales, and profits suffer from the price war, which is particularly raging in China. The difficulties have tightened since the beginning of the year. In the first months of 2025, the demand for Tesla vehicles broke drastically.
Sales collapsed in Germany in February in February by more than 75 percent, although the electric market market attracted overall again. The situation is similar in many other countries: a quarter fewer Teslas were sold in the Netherlands in February, 42 percent less in Sweden, 48 percent in Denmark and Norway, 45 percent in France, 55 percent in Italy. In Australia, too, sales went down by two thirds.
The new registrations of Tesla in the United States fell by 11 percent in January compared to the previous year, as can be seen from S&P Global Mobility data – even though the company’s competitors were able to grow with their electric cars. Ford, for example, recorded an increase of 54 percent.
There are now protests against Musk in the United States, and more and more people are making their Teslas in payment. Tesla vehicles from model year 2017 made 1.4 percent of all vehicles exchanged by the dealer until March 15, as emerged from Edmunds statistics on Thursday. In March of the previous year, the value was 0.4 percent.
This damages the value of the brand and also the company as such. Compared to the maximum state, the share in March, at 222.40 euros, was only around half. In December, however, the share was 463 euros. At that time, this screwed the company value to 1.48 trillion euros. Experts argue about whether the currently significantly lower value is still exaggerated, because in 2024 the profit from Tesla was just around seven billion euros.
