Musk’s DOGE cuts helped his corporations steer clear of over $2 billion in prison liabilities, new Senate document alleges

Elon Musk would possibly skirt greater than $2 billion in conceivable monetary liabilities by means of exercising his affect over the government, a new document from Senate Democratic committee staffers out Monday alleges.

Musk’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ has introduced sweeping adjustments to Washington with its slash-and-burn marketing campaign to intestine companies and purge the federal staff. President Donald Trump has avidly supported Musk’s cuts.

As he seems poised to step again from his DOGE paintings within the coming weeks, Democrats are accusing the arena’s richest particular person of the usage of his affect to “evade oversight, derail investigations, and make litigation disappear whenever he so chooses—on his terms and at his command.”

The document, compiled by means of Democratic workforce of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), discovered that at the day of Trump’s inauguration, Musk and his corporations had been going through no less than 65 “actual or potential” regulatory or enforcement movements from 11 federal companies. These movements totaled no less than $2.37 billion in attainable legal responsibility, the senators wrote.

According to the 44-page memo, the possible liabilities integrated $1.19 billion at Tesla for allegedly making deceptive statements about its autopilot and self-driving options.

Neuralink confronted $281 million in conceivable legal responsibility for allegedly making false statements about dangers from its product, in keeping with the memo.

Additionally, the corporate may have been pressured to pay $1.59 million in civil and prison consequences for alleged violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

“The through line connecting many of Mr. Musk’s decisions appears to be self-enrichment and avoiding what he perceives as obstacles to advancing his interests,” reads the memo.

“The truth is that the breathtaking scope and scale of benefits Mr. Musk is gaining from his present position may never be known, and that is by design. The silence is strategic, and it is dangerous,” it says.

In the wake of the memo, the committee’s rating member, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Conn., despatched letters to 5 Musk-led corporations — SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, The Boring Company and xAI — asking them to supply knowledge at the federal investigations they confronted previous to Trump’s inauguration.

CNBC has reached out to the firms for remark.

The letters additionally requests a rundown of the stairs every corporate has taken to stay Musk’s govt paintings become independent from the ones probes. Blumenthal asks the firms to reply by means of May 11.

The White House sharply rejected any recommendation that Musk has used his function in govt for “personal or financial gain,” pronouncing “any assertion otherwise is completely false and defamatory.”

Blumenthal “is clearly suffering from a debilitating and uncurable [sic] case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has wilted his brain,” White House communications director Steven Cheung mentioned in a remark.