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Elon Musk is being sued over his $1 million giveaway to voters — again

An image of Elon Musk in a tuxedo making an odd face. The background is red with weight scales on it.
Image: Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

Arizona resident Jacqueline McAferty is suing Elon Musk and his pro-Trump America PAC in a Texas federal court, alleging that the PAC’s $1 million-a-day lottery to registered voters in swing states was fraud. The proposed class-action lawsuit was filed a day after a Philadelphia judge denied the city’s request to order Musk to end the lottery — and seems to have been spurred by Musk’s legal defense in the Philadelphia case.

The complaint, filed in a federal court in Austin, alleges that Musk falsely claimed the PAC would choose sweepstakes winners randomly when the selections were, in fact, predetermined. The complaint cites comments made yesterday by Chris Gober, a Republican lawyer CNBC identified as America PAC’s former treasurer.

“...

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Mozilla is eliminating its advocacy division, which fought for a free and open web

The Firefox logo on a black background
Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

The Mozilla Foundation laid off 30 percent of its workforce and completely eliminated its advocacy and global programs divisions, TechCrunch reports.

While Mozilla is best known for its Firefox web browser, the Mozilla Foundation — the parent of the Mozilla Corporation — describes itself as standing up “for the health of the internet.” With its advocacy and global programs divisions gone, its impact may be lessened going forward.

“Fighting for a free and open internet will always be core to our mission, and advocacy continues to be a critical tool in that work. We’re revisiting how we pursue that work, not stopping it,” Brandon Borrman, the Mozilla Foundation’s communications chief, said in an email to The Verge. Borrman declined to...

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Misleading ‘pro-Harris’ texts are bombarding swing state voters

Photo collage of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

Swing state voters are being inundated with text messages seemingly designed to look like they’re coming from supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris or even from her campaign itself. Some of the messages imply that Harris is misleading the public about her efforts to secure a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, while others say she has “pledged to support Israel as they wage their war in Gaza.” Although the texts are written to sound like standard campaign mass messaging, they contain no call to action or URL to a campaign site. But most bizarrely, the sender will reiterate and emphasize that Harris “will always stand with Israel” if the recipient replies identifying themselves as pro-Palestinian.

“I want to make sure we set...

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Tech leaders kiss the ring

Photo collage of former President Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

If former President Donald Trump is to be believed, some of the richest and most powerful people in the world have called him to lavish him with compliments. Though most leaders of major tech companies haven’t publicly endorsed him — with one glaring exception — Trump claims they’ve privately told him how cool he is, implied they’d be better off under a Trump presidency, or said they aren’t voting for his opponent.

Among Trump’s claims: Google CEO Sundar Pichai congratulated him on his stint as a McDonald’s employee, calling it “one of the biggest things we’ve seen on Google”; Tim Cook called him to complain about fines the European Union levied on Apple; Mark Zuckerberg called him multiple times to “apologize” and said there’s “no way”...

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An Elon Musk-funded super PAC is putting out fake pro-Harris ads

Graphic photo collage of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge; Getty Images

If you’re a swing state voter, you may have seen ads claiming that vice president Kamala Harris wants to institute a mandatory gun buyback program and make it easier for undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses. These ostensibly pro-Harris ads are the product of Progress 2025, a campaign designed to look like the Democratic answer to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — but they’re actually funded by a group called Building America’s Future, a pro-Trump super PAC that is in turn funded by Elon Musk.

Building America’s Future is expanding an ad campaign targeted at undecided voters in swing states, 404 Media reports. Over the past week, the PAC spent over $300,000 on a dozen Facebook ads, which are sub-targeted to 819...

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