Is Elon Musk's $1 Million Election Sweepstakes Legal? Experts weigh in.

When John Dreher found out late last week that he had won $1 million, the Pennsylvania resident threw his arms in the air, walked onto a brightly lit stage and shook hands with the tech billionaire behind the gift: Elon Musk.

Blinded by Musk, Dreher said he “forgot about the money for a while,” according to a video Musk's America PAC posted on X on Saturday.

In addition to Dreher, three other people received $1 million in payments as part of a daily sweepstakes for registered swing state voters that will run through Election Day, America PAC's website says.

But the payments could well be illegal, election law experts told ABC News.

They said the giveaways appeared to violate federal laws that prohibit individuals from paying money in exchange for voter registration. However, they added that the payment system occupies an unclear legal area that leaves room for interpretation.

“I've talked back and forth about it,” Richard Briffault, a law professor at Columbia University Law School, told ABC News. “It clearly violates the spirit of the law, but it’s not 100 percent clear to me that it violates the letter of the law.”

ABC News contacted Musk's companies Tesla and Space X for comment. He didn't answer immediately. America PAC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Justice Department has sent a letter to America PAC warning Musk that his sweepstakes may violate federal law, a source familiar with the matter told ABC News on Wednesday. It's unclear whether the department has already determined that Musk's giveaway is illegal.

The Justice Department declined to comment to ABC News.

To enter the sweepstakes for the $1 million prize, individuals must sign a petition distributed by America PAC expressing support for the First and Second Amendments. The only people eligible to sign are registered voters in seven key battleground states, America PAC's website says.

The federal law targets anyone who “pays, offers to pay, or accepts payment either to register to vote or to vote.” The penalty is a maximum fine of $10,000 or up to five years in prison.

Musk's initiative appears to violate the law, as the exclusive eligibility of registered swing-state voters and Musk's enthusiastic support for Trump suggest that encouraging voter registration is the main goal of the sweepstakes, experts said.

“His intent is clearly to give people a financial incentive to get them to register to vote,” James Gardner, an election law professor at the University at Buffalo, told ABC News.

Doug Spencer, an election law professor at the University of Colorado, agreed. “It seems like it’s really crossing the line,” he said.

Rick Hasen, the director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at the UCLA School of Law, called the giveaways “clearly illegal” in a blog post on Saturday.

Voting law allows campaigns to assist voters in certain ways, such as arranging a carpool to a polling place on Election Day. But some experts said Musk's giveaway appeared to fall into a separate category of illegal voter registration inducements.

“It’s not like going to the polls,” Briffault said.

But some experts said there are plausible arguments to protect the giveaway from legal jeopardy. For example, it is not aimed exclusively at newly registered voters; it is also open to long-time voters. Additionally, experts added, federal law provides scope for political speech and donations.

“This is structured in a way that creates ambiguity,” Spencer said.

Musk could be prosecuted for the alleged crime, but that won't happen before Election Day, experts said. Prosecution could act as a deterrent to potential future offenders – although a prison sentence would be highly unlikely and the fine could be considered negligible for a billionaire, Spencer added.

“The fine is no more than $10,000,” Spencer said. “In practice it might not mean much.”

ABC News' Alexander Malin contributed to this report.