Elon Musk Told His Millions of Followers to Vote Republican, But Did He Bother to Vote Himself?

JIM WATSON/AFP

Twitter owner Elon Musk told his millions of followers to vote Republican in Tuesday night’s elections. However, did he bother to vote himself?

According to Joshua Benton of Harvard University’s Nieman Lab, Musk may not have cast a ballot.

“Texas records say Elon is currently registered to vote down in Cameron County, near his SpaceX facility. He said he cast his first-ever Republican vote there a few months ago, when he supported Mayra Flores in a U.S. House special election,” he tweeted.

Benton explained, “There are three ways to vote in Cameron County: in person on Election Day, in person via Early Voting, or by mail. The county’s voting results include a breakdown of the three. For Tuesday’s election, it was 22,805 on election-day (ED), 51,862 early (EV), and 3,201 mail (MAIL).”

“Every vote was cast one of those three ways, according to the county report. (No provisional ballots.),” he tweeted with a link to records.

“Cameron County also publishes spreadsheets with the names of the people who either vote early or by mail,” added Benton with links to those spreadsheets. “No Elon in either list.”

So did Musk vote on Election Day?

“That would seem to leave voting in person on Election Day as the remaining option. Maybe he did! If you saw him in line at your South Texas precinct, speak up! But I’d note that his private jet left Texas for SF a full day before the polls opened.”

“Indeed, if @ElonJet’s times are accurate, he tweeted his advice to vote Republican mid-flight,” he wrote with an embedded tweet from a Twitter account that monitors the movements of Musk’s private jet.

Benton concluded, “It’s certainly no crime not to vote! Tens of millions of Americans do it all the time. Or maybe Musk changed his legal residence last week. But we should make it as easy as practically possible for everyone to do it — from the richest person in the world to the poorest.”

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