Elon Musk is far and away the biggest spender in this year’s race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, throwing his fortune behind a conservative candidate aiming to topple the court’s 4-to-3 liberal majority.
The deluge of cash — $20 million and counting from Mr. Musk and groups tied to him — comes as his electric car company, Tesla, is suing Wisconsin over its law prohibiting vehicle manufacturers from selling cars directly to consumers. The law requires a franchisee to act as a middleman.
Tesla filed the lawsuit in January, days before Mr. Musk began spending on the race. He has not publicly mentioned the litigation, but for weeks it has served as a backdrop of the April 1 election. The case is now before a court in Milwaukee County, but it could proceed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the coming months.
The conservative candidate, Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County judge who has declined to discuss the Tesla case, appeared with Mr. Musk on a social media livestream on Saturday and drew President Trump’s endorsement late last week. He faces Susan Crawford, a liberal Dane County judge backed by Wisconsin Democrats.
Since Mr. Musk began spending to help Judge Schimel, Judge Crawford and Wisconsin Democrats have built their public messaging around the idea that she is in a battle with the billionaire leading Mr. Trump’s destruction of the federal government.
“It is no coincidence that Elon Musk started spending that money within days of Tesla filing a lawsuit in Wisconsin,” Judge Crawford said during a televised debate this month.
Mr. Musk, however, may be more motivated by his newfound bond with Mr. Trump and Republicans than by the prospect of selling more cars in Wisconsin, where Tesla sells 3,000 to 4,000 cars annually to residents who must go out of state to collect them.
Where does Tesla’s lawsuit stand?
In March 2023, Tesla applied for licenses to open four dealerships in the state. The Wisconsin Department of Transportation denied the request because of the state law forbidding direct car sales to consumers.
Tesla appealed the decision, and in December the state’s Department of Administration denied that appeal. On Jan. 15, Tesla filed its lawsuit in Outagamie County, one of the four places where the company had applied for dealership licenses.
Tesla’s lawyers in Wisconsin did not respond to requests to discuss the lawsuit. Josh Kaul, the Wisconsin attorney general, declined to be interviewed about the case. Mr. Kaul’s spokesman said the state’s Department of Justice would not comment, either.
What’s the story behind Wisconsin’s law on car sales?
Ever since Tesla started selling cars in 2008, the company has fought battles to bypass decades-old state franchise laws and sell vehicles directly to consumers.
The laws, the first of which were passed before World War II, prevent automakers from opening company-owned stores that would compete with, and have price advantages over, independent car dealers. The laws are typically defended by powerful lobbying groups representing dealers, who are often significant political donors in their communities and more likely to back Republicans than Democrats.
Tesla is currently prevented from operating its own dealerships in a dozen states beyond Wisconsin, including Texas, where the company is based. Tesla and other automakers that do not have franchise dealers — like the fellow electric vehicle companies Rivian and Polestar — can still sell cars in those states, but consumers usually must complete the purchase online and travel to another state to pick up their vehicles, or have their vehicles delivered to them. In Wisconsin, Tesla buyers typically have to travel to Chicago or Minneapolis to collect their new cars.
In about two dozen states, Tesla has successfully pushed to have franchise laws repealed or modified.
In Delaware, a 2023 ruling by the State Supreme Court ended a legal battle and cleared the way for Tesla to sell cars directly to consumers in the state. In 2020, Michigan settled a lawsuit filed by Tesla by allowing the company to sell and service cars there, a major victory for the company in a state where America’s major legacy auto manufacturers are based and hold significant political influence.
These legacy car makers would like to be able to sell some cars directly because some customers would prefer that, but they know the franchise system is so entrenched and dealers are so powerful that they dare not try to overturn it. They also do not want Tesla to play by different rules and gain a competitive advantage.
What are the politics of Tesla in Wisconsin?
Chris Kapenga, a Republican state senator from Waukesha County, at the time had a business license to rebuild Teslas, which he said he did at his home for fun. Mr. Kapenga said in an interview on Tuesday that he had backed the pro-Tesla legislation because he had wanted to increase competition for the state’s existing car dealers — something they vigorously oppose.
“The lobbyist for the dealers says: ‘We have to protect the consumers. Everybody trusts their auto dealers, and we’re protecting consumers from the big companies,’” Mr. Kapenga said. “But if you pull the average person from the street, the last thing they’re going to say is, ‘Yeah, I trust my auto dealership.’”
In Wisconsin and elsewhere, Tesla politics are tricky. For years, it was Democrats who embraced electric vehicles as a way to reduce reliance on gasoline. Car dealers tend to be Republican. And Wisconsin charges a $175 annual fee to electric vehicle owners because their cars do not contribute to the state’s gas tax collections.
Tim Carpenter, a Democratic state senator from Milwaukee who sits on his chamber’s transportation committee, said that a few years ago, he happily accepted Tesla’s invitation to drive one of its cars around the Milwaukee Mile racetrack at the Wisconsin State Fair Park.
“The people who were environmentalists tried to get Democrats to embrace the new technology,” Mr. Carpenter said. A Honda owner, Mr. Carpenter was not in love with the Tesla.
“It seemed a little boxy,” he said.
What has Tesla done to get around state laws elsewhere?
Tesla has made a lot of deals with state officials to be allowed to open its own retail stores — as opposed to the franchised dealerships where traditional automakers sell cars — by presenting itself as a company that top politicians want to be seen doing business with.
In Virginia, where a decades-old law remains on the books forbidding direct sales of cars, the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles agreed in 2013 to allow Tesla to open a dealership. It later agreed to more.
In 2014, Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, took office as governor with a platform of making Virginia a business-friendly capital of renewable energy. When Tesla opened its first dealership in the Washington suburbs in 2015, Mr. McAuliffe appeared at the ribbon-cutting.
“It wasn’t controversial — everybody knew I was for it,” he said in an interview. “I didn’t get any blowback, just the auto dealers.”
How did Musk get involved in the Wisconsin race?
By mid-January, Wisconsin Republicans had been lobbying Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk for weeks to push for Judge Schimel’s election.
Eight days after Tesla filed its lawsuit, Mr. Musk made his first social media post about the race, writing on X: “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud.”
In February, a super PAC funded by Mr. Musk, America PAC, began funding a canvassing operation to turn out conservative voters for Judge Schimel. It is paying canvassers $25 per hour and offering $100 to any voter who signs a petition “in opposition to activist judges,” an attempt to identify and turn out more right-leaning Wisconsinites.
So far, America PAC has spent $11.5 million on the race, Wisconsin campaign finance records show. Building America’s Future, a conservative nonprofit organization that Mr. Musk has backed in the past, has spent $7.1 million on television advertising, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. And Mr. Musk has donated an additional $3 million to the Republican Party of Wisconsin, which is allowed by state law to transfer unlimited sums to Judge Schimel’s campaign.
