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From The Hill: The Democratic organization End Citizens United filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Tuesday over former President Trump’s interview with tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Trump spoke with Musk on social media platform X, which Musk owns, on Monday night for roughly two hours after their conversation was delayed by technical difficulties. In its complaint on Tuesday, End Citizens United alleged that the interview was a corporate contribution that violated campaign finance laws.
“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.
“This brazen corporate contribution undermines campaign finance laws and would set a dangerous precedent for unfettered, direct corporate engagement in campaigns. The FEC must investigate this corporate-funded campaign event and hold Trump, his campaign, and X Corp. accountable,” she added.
The complaint claims that the online “conversation” between Trump and Musk “amounted to a virtual campaign event for Donald J. Trump financed by X,” and declares that federal campaign finance law prohibits corporations from making contributions to federal candidates, who cannot accept the contributions.
End Citizens United used the X/Twitter platform themselves to fire off an announcement Tuesday evening: “BREAKING: We just filed an FEC complaint against the Trump campaign and X for breaking campaign finance laws after X and Elon Musk gave Trump a prohibited corporate in-kind contribution by hosting last night’s pro-Trump campaign event using X resources.”
🚨BREAKING: We just filed an FEC complaint against the Trump campaign and X for breaking campaign finance laws after X and Elon Musk gave Trump a prohibited corporate in-kind contribution by hosting last night’s pro-Trump campaign event using X resources.https://t.co/8UVubdnc4H
— End Citizens United (@StopBigMoney) August 13, 2024
However, Musk had made the same offer to Kamala Harris as well.
“Happy to host Kamala on an 𝕏 Spaces too,” he announced Monday night after the interview with Trump had concluded.
Happy to host Kamala on an 𝕏 Spaces too
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
Democratic PAC files FEC complaint over Trump-Musk interview https://t.co/0cK1uKF8w3
— The Hill (@thehill) August 14, 2024
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