PHILADELPHIA — A Pennsylvania prosecutor’s effort to shut down Elon Musk’s $1 million-a-day voter sweepstakes was moved to federal court Thursday after a state judge let both sides argue their grievances in a hearing ignored by the richest man in the world.

Judge Angelo Foglietta agreed that Musk, as a named defendant in the lawsuit filed by Democratic U.S. Attorney Larry Krasner, should have attended the hearing in person, but declined to immediately sanction the tech mogul.

Musk’s attorney, Matthew Haverstick, said he was a busy man who could not simply “materialize” in the courtroom hours after the hearing was scheduled. Krasner’s team contested the idea that the SpaceX founder couldn’t make it to Philadelphia, prompting a swift retort from the judge.

“Mr. Lawyer, he’s not going to get in a rocket and land on the building,” Foglietta replied.

After his lawyers argued that claims of federal election interference were involved, Foglietta suspended the state’s case pending a decision in federal court, where the case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Gerald J. Pappert, a Republican former Pennsylvania attorney general appointed in President Barack Obama’s federal bank. No hearings were immediately scheduled there.

However, late Thursday, Krasner filed a petition to move the case back to the Democratic-led state court in Philadelphia. He had filed his lawsuit there on Monday.