Elon Musk’s newest target is the regulator that fined him $20m and is still investigating him

DOGE overlord Elon Musk is now aiming his crosshairs on the Securities Alternate Fee (SEC), a transfer that flies within the face of Donald Trump’s denials claiming that the Tesla CEO had no conflicts of curiosity as he embarks on a federal firing and cost-cutting campaign.

This time Musk is investigating the very same company that’s at present concentrating on him – and fined him $22 million for safety violations in a previous case.

The information was revealed on a “DOGE SEC” X account with a grey Twitter badge marking it as a professional website of Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity operation. The account issued its first tweet on Monday, asking the general public’s assist to report any SEC “waste, fraud and abuse.”

As CEO of Tesla, Musk was embroiled in a months-long conflict with the SEC over posts about taking his electrical automobile firm personal at $420 a share. SEC officers mentioned he was deceptive traders with the put up. He and Tesla had been each ultimately fined $20 million.

Musk in December berated the SEC regarding one other case in opposition to him: its ongoing lawsuit over whether or not he correctly disclosed his possession stake in Twitter earlier than he purchased the operation in 2022.

The go well with, filed final month, alleges Musk violated federal securities laws, enabling him to buy shares of Twitter at artificially low costs earlier than his $44 billion takeover, and inflicting “substantial financial hurt” to traders left in the dead of night about Musk’s stake.

Musk, conveniently, has referred to as the SEC “simply one other weaponized establishment doing political soiled work.” And he’s now investigating it backed by the authority of Donald Trump.

The DOGE SEC tweet was notable for a number of causes: It occurred on President’s Day, and it gave the impression to be DOGE’s first X website for a focused federal company. One different created for the Division of Training, @DOGE_ED additionally tweeted for the primary time Monday.

The identical plea for assist from the general public on the DOGE SEC website was additionally posted on a DOGE IRS website.

The Unbiased situated one different comparable X account following an identical naming conference: @DOGE_USAID. But it surely was unclear whether or not the restricted account lacking an X authenticity badge was created by DOGE or was unrelated.

Musk’s DOGE workforce is behind the firing of 1000’s of federal employees since Donald Trump’s presidency whereas 1000’s extra have been positioned on depart as their businesses are “restructured” and in some circumstances focused for elimination fully.

A few of these firings are at present tied up in court docket battles, however tens of 1000’s of People (together with some who just lately moved to Washington D.C. for brand new jobs) at the moment are with out work.

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The Washington Put up and CNN individually reported on Monday that DOGE brokers in search of to implement cost-cutting efforts on the Inside Income Service are at present in search of entry to a delicate system that features the non-public knowledge of American taxpayers, together with Social Safety numbers and financial institution accounts.

Officers are reported to be “imminently” set to signal a memorandum granting DOGE officers entry to company datasets and tax programs, together with the Built-in Knowledge Retrieval System.

The capital area is way from the one space to be hit by DOGE’s firing spree and the termination of federal spending. The canceling or halting of grants and different federal packages across the nation has affected analysis services, nationwide parks, and different federally funded services, organizations and initiatives in lots of states.

Final week’s firing of lots of of specialists in control of overseeing America’s nuclear arsenal was solely the newest instance of DOGE capturing off pink slips first and asking questions later. The Musk-led workforce was struggling to rehire these workers on Friday. It was reportedly tough to find the axed specialists to rehire them as a result of their contact info had been erased from the Nationwide Nuclear Safety System.

Musk may immediately profit financially from his DOGE workforce’s work.

SpaceX, Musk’s personal spaceflight firm, for instance, may find yourself being the winner if DOGE’s cuts prolong to NASA, which as of final week was beneath a “deep-dive audit” into its funds on the hand of Musk’s underlings, Bloomberg reported. Duties that might not be achieved by a Musk-hobbled NASA may presumably be picked up by SpaceX, compensated by taxpayer-funded contracts.

“They’ll look – equally to what they’ve performed at different businesses – at our funds,” performing NASA administrator Janet Petro advised reporters final week.