Elon Musk is amplifying a right wing conspiracy theory that the Wisconsin Supreme Court election was stolen after his preferred candidate lost.
Liberal appellate judge Susan Crawford defeated conservative Brad Schimel by 9 points on Tuesday. It was humiliating defeat for Musk who spent a record $21 million to get Schimel elected and engaged in a series of high profile stunts such as handing out $1 million checks to two voters while wearing a cheese hat.
On X, Musk replied “Hmm” to a video posted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in which former Trump adviser Roger Stone claimed there was rampant voter fraud with mail-in ballots, adding that Crawford’s campaign was “illegally financed.”
“It’s a matter of simple math,” Stone said. “The numbers just don’t add up.”
Musk had initially tried to downplay Schimel’s loss in the election claiming that actually, “the most important thing” was a ballot initiative enshrining a voter ID law in the state constitution.
According to The New York Times, Wisconsin already requires voters to show photo identification and the new amendment just makes it harder for courts or the state legislature to remove that requirement in the future.
Also, the ballot initiative was successful because ID laws have broad bipartisan support in Wisconsin.
A Pew Research survey found that 81 percent of respondents were in favor of voters being required to show government-issued identification. That includes 69 percent of Democrats and 95 percent of Republicans.
