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Tech billionaire Elon Musk is back in the news for taking on the US market regulator SEC or the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Musk's lawyer Alex Shapiro has stated in a letter that Musk has faced 6 years of harassment by the SEC and the Biden administration.
Oh Gary, how could you do this to me? 🥹 pic.twitter.com/OoooQI77ZS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2024The charges made by Musk and his lawyer are justified. The entire might of the US Justice Department and the SEC as well as other departments came down on Musk and his companies. The deep rot in the system was exposed by Musk who has been under attack for various frivolous and false charges since 2021.
The first sign of a feud was visible in February 2021, barely a month after Joe Biden assumed office as the President of the United States. "My top recommendation, honestly, would be just add a carbon tax," the billionaire owner of Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink and X.com told a podcaster. Musk lobbied for it with Biden in vain.
In August 2021, Biden made it clear that Elon Musk was to be sidelined. A White House summit on electric vehicles was held, with the leadership of Ford and General Motors as well as the Auto Workers' Union UAW. Tesla, despite being the largest and most innovative company in the EV space, was not invited. Musk tweeted about it - "Yeah, seems odd that Tesla wasn't invited."
Yeah, seems odd that Tesla wasn't invited
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 5, 2021It is difficult to comprehend why the Biden administration decided to "cold shoulder" Tesla and Musk. Both men are pro-clean fuel and Musk had donated close to half a million dollars to Hillary Clinton's as well as Joe Biden's campaign. In fact, he stated that he voted Democrat too.
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; Government is the problem," said former US President Ronald Reagan, in his inaugural address in 1981. His words find echo in what has happened to Elon Musk under the Biden regime.
As the disaffection grew, Musk began criticising the Biden administration's policies. Biden then unleashed the full might of the government on Musk and his companies. They set up investigations into his companies and even forced Musk to agree to a clause wherein his tweets would be vetted by the Tesla Board.
Elon Musk, though, refused to kneel. In October 2022, he bought Twitter, the popular social media platform. He then released a series of internal documents that showed how deeply the Jack Dorsey-led team had been involved in censoring political views and content, thereby helping the Democrats. Musk handed over what came to be known as the Twitter Files to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson. The Twitter Files were published between December 2022 to March 2023.
The Biden administrated began to attack Musk's businesses.
The U.S. Department of Transportation cited violations and fined SpaceX and Neuralink. A government body under the Department - the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) - opened an investigation into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles in December 2023 for alleged safety issues with the company's Full Self-Driving software. This came on the back of four reported collisions and a fatal accident.
Tesla was forced to recall 2 million cars due to this, although it has provided evidence that its cars are safer with the autopilot system.
The collisions that the NHTSA is investigating involve cases where drivers of those cars were not paying attention to the road. One driver said he was searching the floor of the car for his phone when the collision happened. Others did not pay attention to the autopilot system's warnings. A California jury ruled that the case in which a pedestrian died as a Tesla car rammed into him was not the fault of the autopilot feature. The driver of the Tesla had had alcohol in his system at the time.
In September 2024, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) which comes under the Transportation Department fined SpaceX $633,009 for "allegedly failing to follow its license requirements during two launches in 2023."
In February 2023, based on a complaint by an animal rights group, the Department of Transportation opened an investigation into "possible unsafe transport of contaminated hardware." The agency fined Neuralink $2,480.
The US Justice Department
In October 2022, they opened an investigation into the vehicle performance of Tesla and the use of company funds allegedly for a house for Elon Musk.
In August 2023, the Justice Department sued SpaceX for not employing migrants and those seeking asylum. SpaceX was alleged to have hired only U.S. citizens. A U.S. court has blocked the Justice Department from going ahead in this case.
The US Department of Labor
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) which comes under the U.S. Department of Labor opened an investigation into the death of a worker at Tesla's Gigafactory in Texas. The investigation began in September 2024. In 2022, OSHA had fined Tesla $6,913 for allegedly exposing workers to hazardous chemicals without proper training.
In 2023, OSHA had also opened investigations into worker injuries that were allegedly not reported by SpaceX.
The US Department of the Interior (Fish and Wildlife Service)
In May 2022, the US Department of the Interior issued a letter stating that there would be no damage to fish and wildlife in Starbase, the rocket launchpad of SpaceX in Boca Chica, Texas. Subsequently, the Department did an about-turn - stating that it could not measure long-term impact.
A flood of litigation by environmental groups and investigations by various environment-related departments of the US government followed.
The US Department of Agriculture
In December 2022, the Department of Agriculture initiated an investigation into claims of cruelty to animals in Neuralink.
A year later, the case was closed as there was no evidence of the same.
Other Agencies
National Labor Relations Board: The Board took up complaints over Musk's 2018 tweet wherein he stated that he was against unionisation and that employees at Tesla who wanted to form a union could lose their stock options.
Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 21, 2018This post on X.com was found by a judge of the Board as violating labour laws "threatening employees" with loss of stock options if they voted to form a union. The Appeals court, however, sided with Musk and stated that it was not a threat.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: In September 2023, this Commission sued Tesla for alleged racial harassment and retaliation against Black Americans. This case is ongoing.
Environmental Protection Agency: In August 2024, the Agency initiated a probe against SpaceX for allegedly dumping hazardous wastewater into the city's sewer system without permits.
They are also investigating allegations that a malfunctioning casting furnace released toxins into the air.
The Agency also initiated a lawsuit against Tesla for alleged air pollution in its California facility. This was in 2021. The company paid a penalty of $275,000 to settle the case.
Federal Communications Commission: The Commission reversed a 2020 funding of $885 million in subsidies to Starlink to help expand rural broadband coverage.
The Commission claimed that Starlink "failed to demonstrate that it could deliver the promised service."
Starlink, however, provides high-speed broadband service in 60 countries like Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Benin, Costa Rica, the Maldives and for the U.S. personnel in Ukraine.
Musk posted his surprise at the decision to cut funding and the rationale for it. He alleged that the rules had been changed by the government to stop Starlink from getting the contract.
Doesn't make sense. Starlink is the only company actually solving rural broadband at scale!
They should arguably dissolve the program and return funds to taxpayers, but definitely not send it those who aren't getting the job done.
What actually happened is that the companies…
Federal Trade Commission: As Musk was set to acquire Twitter from Jack Dorsey in April 2022, the Commission demanded a modified consent decree without providing adequate time for all stakeholders to read the new documents. A Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives launched an enquiry into the actions of the FTC chairperson Lina Khan and her role in attempting to harass Elon Musk during the takeover of Twitter.
In an exhaustive report titled The Weaponization of the Federal Trade Commission Part II - Harassment of Elon Musk, the Judiciary Committee states that “over a dozen letters” were “sent by the FTC to Twitter within the first three months following Musk's takeover of the company.”
The report goes on to state - “The Biden-Harris FTC used these letters to impose more than 350 different demands for documents and information, including a significant number of demands that fell outside the scope of the FTC's consent decree.”
They concluded that “this regulatory assault by the FTC appeared to be politically motivated.”
Securities & Exchange Commission: In the most recent war between the market regulator SEC and Elon Musk, the latter posted a letter by his lawyer Alex Shapiro which claimed that the SEC had given Musk 48 hours to pay a penalty or “face numerous charges” regarding “certain purchases, sales and disclosures of Twitter shares.”
Musk has gone head-to-head with the SEC multiple times. In a 2018 television interview, he categorically stated that he does not respect the SEC. In the latest spat, he has called the regulator a “weaponized institution doing political dirty work.”
The SEC is just another weaponized institution doing political dirty work https://t.co/5w9ajcS6bf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2024His spat with the SEC began when the regulator ordered an investigation into a 2018 post by Musk about taking Tesla private. Musk and Tesla paid $20 million each to settle the case, although Musk maintained that he had firm funding for the deal.
Musk also posted a letter from the SEC chair Gary Gensler which shows a new investigation had been launched against Neuralink.
Oh Gary, how could you do this to me? 🥹 pic.twitter.com/OoooQI77ZS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 12, 2024It is little wonder then that Musk's lawyer alleges 6 years of harassment by the U.S. government in the letter to the SEC.
Musk's travails are also glaring examples of how political, flawed, unprofessional and vindictive the Biden administration has been to individuals. When the might of the government machinery of a superpower state decides to work against an individual, many tales are fabricated to achieve the political master's end.
The Adanis, in India, are victims of this same politicisation and weaponisation of the government under Biden.
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