The Musk-related cases could languish or be dropped by Trump-appointed agency and department heads, current and former U.S. officials said
Elon Musk speaks with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump at a viewing of the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket, in Brownsville, Tex., on Nov. 19, 2024.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.
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. Musk, Tesla, SpaceX and Neuralink did not respond to comment requests. Before the election, Musk posted: “I have never asked for any favours, nor has he offered me any.”
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.
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 said they would continue fulfilling their legal and regulatory responsibilities.
NHTSA officials have repeatedly scrutinized Tesla for nearly a decade, at times enraging Musk. During one 2016 call, he screamed profanities at regulators launching the first of several investigations into Tesla’s Autopilot driver-assistance system after a fatal crash, according to two people familiar with the matter. There are currently five ongoing and open NHTSA probes covering driver-assistance technology and other operations in Tesla vehicles.
“To our knowledge no government agency in any ongoing investigation has concluded that any wrongdoing occurred,” Tesla said in quarterly SEC filings.
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