Washington DC [US], January 3: Last month, in the waning days of the Biden administration, the SEC set a tight deadline of several days for demanding that Elon Musk pay a settlement or face civil charges relating to alleged securities violations during his $44 billion takeover of Twitter in 2022.
Musk broke the news himself in a social-media post: "Oh Gary, how could you do this to me?" he wrote, referring to SEC Chair Gary Gensler.
He added a smiley-face emoji but attached a legal letter condemning the "improperly motivated" ultimatum: "We demand to know who directed these actions-whether it was you or the White House."
An SEC spokesperson declined to comment on the incident. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The SEC is not the only investigative agency Musk has defied and accused of political harassment. The billionaire has long railed against government oversight, portraying himself as a victim of bureaucratic zealots stifling his companies' potentially life-saving innovations.
The White House will soon be occupied by Donald Trump - whom Musk spent more than a quarter-billion dollars to help elect - rather than Joe Biden, who appointed Gensler. Trump has already named a new SEC chair to replace Gensler, who plans to resign when Trump is inaugurated.
Musk's potential to have extraordinary clout with the new administration raises questions about the fate of federal investigations and regulatory actions affecting his business empire, of which at least 20 are ongoing, according to three sources familiar with SpaceX and Tesla operations and the companies' interaction with the U.S. government, as well as five current and former officials who have direct knowledge of individual probes into Musk's companies.
The inquiries include examinations of the alleged securities violations; questions over the safety of Tesla's Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) systems; potential animal-welfare violations in Neuralink's brain-chip experiments; and alleged pollution, hiring-discrimination and licensing problems at SpaceX.
Musk, Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink did not respond to comment requests. Before the election, Musk posted: "I have never asked [Trump] for any favors, nor has he offered me any."
A Trump-transition spokesperson called Musk a "brilliant" entrepreneur and said Trump's administration would ensure law and order, "treating all Americans equally."
The Musk-related cases could languish or be dropped by Trump-appointed agency and department heads, the current and former U.S. officials said.
Trump's DOJ picks, for example, include lawyers who defended him in criminal and impeachment trials and a nominee for FBI chief whom Musk vocally supported and who has repeatedly vowed to pursue Trump's enemies, one current and three former DOJ officials said.
Lower-level DOJ officials could also exercise prosecutorial discretion to avoid aggressively pursuing Musk companies in light of his relationship with Trump, said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney in Detroit during the Obama administration who also worked as a federal prosecutor during the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations. "To the extent they want to please the boss, I think they know how to do that."
Some legal experts downplayed the risk of political interference from Musk, noting that an investigation's lack of progress could signal insufficient evidence.
It's also possible that prosecutors who believe they have strong cases will push forward regardless of Musk's role, legal experts said.
"I don't think there's as much risk of Musk infiltrating to influence cases," said Robert Frenchman, a white-collar defense lawyer at Dynamis in New York. "Most prosecutors bring cases they think they can win."
Representatives of the DOJ and all departments and agencies with pending inquiries into Musk or his companies did not comment on the probes or their ability to enforce regulations against Trump allies during his second term. The EPA and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said they would continue fulfilling their legal and regulatory responsibilities.
Source: Fijian Broadcasting Corporation
