Profitable the 2024 election didn’t simply return Donald Trump to energy. It additionally allowed him to dodge a number of legal instances. And whereas his unofficial vice chairman, Elon Musk, didn’t want a Trump win to remain out of jail—at the least beneath any current costs—the victory seemingly freed Musk and his firms from regulatory oversight. That’s an exceedingly fortunate break for Musk, presently being scrutinized by a number of authorities companies for every part from his inflated claims about self-driving Tesla vehicles to his SpaceX rocket launches polluting wetlands to his buy of social media platform X—simply to call just a few.
To be completely honest, Trump’s victory means a far friendlier ambiance for all grasping billionaires who hate laws, not simply Musk personally. However Musk is the one sitting subsequent to Trump at Thanksgiving and the one who threw roughly $260 million at Trump’s marketing campaign whereas fawning over him on X and in particular person.
So which pesky investigations and laws is Musk most likely freed from now that his bestie is headed to the White Home?
For starters, maybe he’ll get out from beneath the alphabet soup of companies trying into Tesla’s so-called full self-driving system, or FSD. Musk has promised a imaginative and prescient of a very autonomous hands-free Tesla since 2013. It’s not a imaginative and prescient that has ever come true. The Nationwide Freeway Site visitors Security Administration has twice required Tesla to recall FSD due to the system’s unhealthy behavior of ignoring site visitors legal guidelines, together with being programmed to run cease indicators at gradual speeds. In October, the company opened one other inquiry after the corporate reported 4 crashes, considered one of which killed a pedestrian, when FSD was utilized in low-visibility circumstances like fog.
The difficulty isn’t simply that FSD is unsafe. It’s additionally that Tesla hoovered up money by promoting a product that principally doesn’t exist. Tesla homeowners filed a class-action lawsuit in 2022 alleging the corporate defrauded them by charging $15,000 for an FSD bundle that didn’t lead to a Tesla having the ability to drive itself efficiently. Tesla’s protection? Full self-driving is merely an aspirational aim, so a failure to offer it isn’t a deliberate fraud—simply unhealthy luck. Maybe that’s the identical excuse Tesla would have trotted out in response to the Division of Justice’s legal investigation into whether or not the corporate dedicated wire fraud by deceiving customers about FSD’s capabilities and securities fraud by deceiving buyers.
Trump named former actuality present star and former Congressman Sean Duffy to move the Division of Transportation, of which NHTSA is part, and tapped considered one of his impeachment protection attorneys, Pam Bondi, to move the DOJ after Matt Gaetz’s nomination flamed out. There’s no cause to assume both of those individuals will develop a backbone and proceed investigating “first buddy” Elon Musk or Tesla.
Trump’s election additionally most likely offers SpaceX respiratory room. Musk’s personal house firm, which receives literal billions in authorities cash, hasn’t been terribly fascinated about following authorities guidelines.
In September, the Environmental Safety Company fined SpaceX $148,378 for dumping industrial wastewater and pollution into wetlands close to its Texas launch website. The corporate paid that advantageous, albeit with some whining about the way it was “disappointing” to pay when it disagreed with the allegations, nevertheless it’s planning on difficult the latest $633,000 advantageous from the Federal Aviation Administration. The regulatory company proposed the advantageous after two launches in 2023 the place the corporate allegedly didn’t get FAA approval for launch process adjustments and didn’t observe license necessities.
This isn’t SpaceX’s first run-in with the FAA. The aerospace firm paid a $175,000 advantageous in October 2023 over not submitting required security knowledge to the company earlier than a 2022 launch of Starlink satellites. After an April 2023 launch the place one of many firm’s rockets blew up shortly after takeoff, sending particles over South Texas, the FAA required the company to make dozens of adjustments earlier than one other launch.
Just like the NHTSA, the FAA is a part of the Transportation Division. Sean Duffy’s previous as an airline business lobbyist doesn’t encourage confidence that he’ll take a tough line in opposition to SpaceX.
And so far as whether or not the EPA will proceed to pose any issues for Musk? Underneath Trump, that company might be run by former GOP Rep. Lee Zeldin, whose main qualification appears to be hating EPA laws. He’s voted in opposition to changing lead water pipes and cleansing up brownfields and sees his mission on the EPA as pursuing “energy dominance.” Once more, not precisely somebody who will convey the hammer down on Musk or his firms.
Musk can also be in scorching water with the Securities and Alternate Fee over the chance he delayed disclosing his acquisition of Twitter inventory in 2022. Buyers should disclose after they accumulate 5% of a publicly traded firm, a requirement that ostensible super-genius Musk says he misunderstood one way or the other. Underneath President Joe Biden, present SEC chair Gary Gensler has aggressively pursued enforcement efforts, a development by no means anticipated to proceed beneath whoever Trump picks.
Lightning spherical! Musk tried onerous to violate a consent order with the Federal Commerce Fee by giving “Twitter Files” writers improper entry to consumer knowledge, however he was thwarted by Twitter workers who really adopted the order. He’s confronted quite a few unfair labor practices claims and been investigated a number of instances by the Nationwide Labor Relations Board, so he’s suing to have the board declared unconstitutional. He misplaced out on $885 million in authorities subsidies after the Federal Communications Fee discovered that Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite tv for pc web service, couldn’t meet the velocity metrics for the federal government’s rural broadband program.
Fortunately for the multibillionaire, the incoming head of the FCC is a pal of Musk’s who thinks it’s “regulatory harassment” to require Starlink to satisfy program necessities.
Musk can even have the benefit of helming a newly invented entity, the cringily titled Division of Authorities Effectivity (aka DOGE—ugh), that may put his rivals beneath a microscope. DOGE’s co-head, fellow tech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy, has already stated he’ll look at a authorities mortgage to Rivian, a competing electrical automobile producer, calling the mortgage “a political shot across the bow at Elon Musk and Tesla.” Although DOGE will not be an precise division—you want Congress to create a kind of—and can’t slash spending immediately, Musk might nonetheless counsel to Trump that authorities funding of fiber optic cables in rural areas be gutted. This would go away satellite tv for pc companies like Starlink as the one possibility for some rural customers—an possibility both these customers or the federal government would then must pay for.
Till Trump was elected in 2016, it was unimaginable to think about giving billionaires like Musk a lot alternative to make use of the levers of presidency to brazenly and immediately profit themselves. Now that Trump has gained a second time period in workplace, Musk is only one of many oligarchs trying ahead to a particularly profitable 4 years. It’s fortunate for them—however horrible for the remainder of us.
