The Federal Advisory Committee Act clearly says in its language the advisory committee – as Elon Musk The “Department of Government Efficiency” proposes – it must ensure that its recommendations are not biased towards any particular interest.
However, Musk, the richest man in the world, has broader and deeper conflicts with the federal government than perhaps anyone else has ever had.
Musk owns, directs, or invests in a wide array of industries, including dozens of federal government departments and agencies, from the Department of Transportation with Tesla, to the Department of Defense with SpaceXto the Department of Health and Human Services at Neuralink. His companies have been the subject of federal investigations and regulatory actions, including accusations of hiring discrimination, environmental damage and health deficiencies.
Trump dismissed concerns about Musk’s conflicts of interest, saying in his recent interview with Time Magazine: “I think that Elon puts his country before his company.”
Tesla
The electric car company where Musk serves as CEO is currently worth $1.25tn, more than all other publicly traded car companies in America combined — despite being 10th in revenue and ninth in earnings among them. The stock’s valuation is a product of expectations: that it will eventually put other car companies out of business, that it will take market share, evade the labor and pension costs of legacy manufacturers, and escape deep debt. to produce problems with their cars.
All of those assumptions are based on how the firm is regulated, and how car companies are taxed or subsidized.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is reviewing Tesla’s autopilot system by August 2021. A to announce In April, he said the Autopilot policy would “lead to predictable abuse and avoidable crashes,” and attributed the 13 fatal crashes to Tesla’s self-driving feature and its misuse.
Cuts made to NHTSA staff could directly affect those investigations. More threats of cuts to NHTSA’s current investigations could sway it in favor of takeovers.
Tesla is also facing legal challenges over its labor inventions — the only American auto manufacturer not represented by a labor union. Tesla prevented workers from handing out union pamphlets, banned workers in California from wearing union T-shirts, and threatened workers with the loss of stock options if they joined the union, all acts that the National Labor Relations Board ran against.
Moschus talked about the firing of striking workers in the Talk on X with Donald Trump. “You’re a great tamer,” Trump told Musk. “I see what you are doing. You walk and say: ‘Do you want to quit?’ I will not mention the name of the company, but they strike and you say: It is good that you are all gone.
“Yeah,” Musk replied with a laugh.
Under federal law, workers cannot be fired for striking. Threatening to do so is illegal under the National Labor Relations Act. The United States Auto Workers Exchange filed a complaint with the NLRB, asking it to list the exchange as an illegal threat.
SpaceX
The market value of Musk’s SpaceX, which is privately held, has duplicated over the last year by some estimates at $350bn. Observers attribute some of these gains to Musk’s close relationship with Trump.
Musk has had additional run-ins with the NLRB through his SpaceX rocket and satellite services company. After Musk fired SpaceX employees who had been publicly critical of him, the NLRB ruled those firings illegal.
Mousk’s response in January was to constitutional challenge of the NLRB itself in a federal case. The lawsuit, which was filed by SpaceX in federal court in Texas, argues that administrative law circumvents the NLRB’s judicial process, and that the president can remove those judges under Article II, which the NLRB’s current structure does not allow. .
Consider how the recommendation by the president’s Department of Government Efficiency to reduce the burden on the NLRB, casting judges would affect Musk’s business operations and legal environment.
Unlike a federal judge, an administrative judge does not need confirmation and does not enjoy the same protections against being removed from office as a federal judge.
SpaceX has received more than $15bn in federal government contracts since Musk took charge. It is seeking more than a billion, from Nasa for its mission to the moon, from the Department of Defense for satellite communications services, and from the Federal Communications Commission to provide rural services through its Starlink subsidiary. Nasa recently turned to SpaceX to rescue two stranded astronauts after Boeing’s Starliner program failed to launch a spacecraft to retrieve them from the International Space Station.
But SpaceX has also been the target of regulatory action by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over environmental issues.
SpaceX was the answer say FAA * as they intend to leave Boeing’s problems and SpaceX alone. Consider how Musk’s authority over the FAA and NASA’s policies will impact future regulation and funding for SpaceX, to the competitive disadvantage of Boeing and other aerospace firms.
X
Musk’s purchase of Twitter was arguably made out of regulation. In 2022, Musk – then the largest Twitter shareholder – announced that he was ready to take the company private. The comment drew a stock-dealing lawsuit and prompted an investigation before the Securities and Exchange Commission.
It wasn’t the first time Musk and the SEC were involved. Musk eventually had to pay a $20m fine after tweeting his intention to take Tesla public in 2018, temporarily boosting its share price. The agency said the tweets that preyed on the law were “badly false and misleading.” As part of the settlement, Musk agreed to have the SEC “mind,” vet his social media to ensure they don’t violate securities laws, a condition Musk badly asked the US Supreme Court to remove.
The SEC sought sanctions in an ongoing investigation into Musk’s whistleblower, after Musk He was giving an audience earlier this year. Although it’s unlikely, Musk still potentially faces a criminal charge of stock manipulation for the way he publicly communicated about the company before the purchase was made.
Consider how the call to cut the SEC will keep Musk out of jail.
Musk joked at Tucker Carlson before the election that Trump’s damage occurred in his custody. “If he loses, I’m screwed,” he said. “I’m like, how long do you think my prison sentence is going to be? Will I see my children? I don’t know.”
10 billion dollars in the market due to industry valuations advertisers and users are fleeing the unregulated market platform. One way to profit would be by using user data. It changed its terms of service shortly after the users’ choice to inform them that they would sell user data to third parties for artificial intelligence training purposes.
These types of sales have become the focus of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a government watchdog. CFPB proposed rule Last week it blocked a fraction of sensitive user data as a tool to reduce financial fraud. The rule will deal with data brokers like credit bureaus and background checking companies, requiring those who sell information about income or financial status, credit information or debt payments to comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act.
It is not immediately clear whether X would fall under this rule. But Musk’s recent post calling Trump “Delete the CFPB“He believes that the government can be spendthrift.”
xAI
At the moment, the X user data is a training tool for xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence startup. The private firm is valued at around $50bn and competes with the likes of Microsoft, Google and OpenAI – Musk has not backed out financially.
In addition to data privacy, AI faces few intrinsic regulatory considerations in the US today. But watchers are contemplating the powerful rules of technology that could harm people if misaligned with the public interest. The White House’s Office of Science and Technology released a draft blueprint for the “AI Bill of Rights” in September 2022, which called for legislation to ensure that AI does not affect civil rights or personal privacy.
Musk announced that xAI intends to build the world’s largest supercomputers in Memphis, Tennessee, and has already directed 14 large gas generators to the central power center. The faculty of South Memphis is predominantly Black in the community. Activists from the Southern Environmental Law Center noted that xAI is working for generators without permissionI asked for regulatory action and described “ pollution, such as “environmental racism”.
Musk’s companies have had conflicts with the Environmental Protection Agency on multiple fronts, from emissions at Tesla factories to polluting emissions at the SpaceX launch facility.
Consider the impact of the “Doge” committee’s recommendation that the EPA furlough staff or remove pollution standards.
Neuralink
Musk’s hard-hitting alliance founded Neuralink, a biotech startup aiming to develop human brain implants to allow wireless mind control of electronic thoughts.
The Food and Drug Administration initially denied Neuralink permission to perform human trials, but relented earlier this year. It drew criticism from the crowd — and an investigation by the FDA and the Department of Agriculture — for the way it was done of animals they were killed in the firm’s research and development process.
Cryptocurrency
Musk famously named the new “Department of Government Efficiency,” or Doge, referring to Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency first created as a joke around the internet. The value of that currency grew with Musk’s promotion and spiked after the election.
But Musk, whose first billions came from his work in financial services as one of the founders of PayPal, has long been a fan of crypto. He discovered personal investment in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin. His companies received cryptocurrencies as payment for intermittent services and held cryptocurrencies in their corporate treasury.
You will know about cryptocurrency. Bitcoin’s demand for electricity has driven vagrant miners to find cheap power – and loose energy supplies across the globe. The industry is prone to fraud.
The SEC has pursued cases against initial coin offerings, exchanges, and crypto projects that are thought to be securities without the Internet. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulates cryptocurrencies as commodities – a key distinction from regulations like stocks and bonds, which affects how cryptocurrencies are traded. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network looks at how cryptocurrency can be used as a tool for money laundering, evading sanctions and financing terrorism. And the IRS expects people who own cryptocurrencies to report gains and losses on their taxes.
Cuts to any of these organizations could have a direct and disproportionate effect on Musk’s personal finances.