A collision between the world’s richest man and U.S. history’s most tyrannical administration has always seemed inevitable.
After all, on Oct. 27, 2022, Elon Musk completed a $44 billion purchase of the social media platform X — then known as Twitter — for the sole purpose of protecting free speech.
“[T]he bird is freed,” Musk wrote in his first post as the platform’s new owner.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden’s administration has exhibited historic contempt for the First Amendment and civil liberties in general.
For instance, federal courts have ruled that during the COVID-19 pandemic in particular, Biden and other federal defendants likely committed “the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”
In June, Tucker Carlson devoted an episode of his show to the “Wannabe Dictator” Biden.
That was hardly hyperbole. In fact, two weeks after Musk purchased Twitter, the president effectively declared open season on the platform’s new owner.
At a news conference on Nov. 9, 2022, in response to a reporter’s question about whether Musk’s foreign business dealings constituted a national security threat that the government might need to investigate, the president acknowledged the possibility and declared “there’s a lot of ways” the government could look into Musk.
Brendan Carr, the senior Republican on the Federal Communications Commission, announced one of those “ways” Tuesday on X.
“Last year, after Elon Musk acquired Twitter, President Biden gave federal agencies the green light to go after him. And they have. Today, the FCC adds itself to the growing list of federal agencies engaging in the regulatory harassment of Elon Musk. I dissent,” a disgusted Carr posted.
The FCC commissioner also posted a copy of his passionate dissent from a recent FCC decision to penalize Musk’s SpaceX, operator of the Starlink satellite constellation.
“Indeed, the Commission’s decision today to revoke a 2020 award of $885 million to Elon Musk’s Starlink — an award that Starlink secured after agreeing to provide high-speed Internet service to over 640,000 rural homes and businesses across 35 states — is a decision that cannot be explained by any objective application of law, facts, or policy,” he wrote in his dissent.
Last year, after Elon Musk acquired Twitter, President Biden gave federal agencies the green light to go after him.
And they have.
Today, the FCC adds itself to the growing list of federal agencies engaging in the regulatory harassment of Elon Musk.
I dissent. pic.twitter.com/1zEoGCwiNk
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) December 12, 2023
In a follow-up post, Carr identified other agencies that have targeted Musk.
“President Biden stood at a White House podium & stated that Elon Musk ‘is worth being looked at.’ When asked ‘How?’, President Biden responded ‘There’s a lot of ways.’ There certainly are. The DOJ, FAA, FTC, NLRB, SDNY, & FWS have all taken action. The FCC now joins them,” the commissioner wrote.
President Biden stood at a White House podium & stated that Elon Musk “is worth being looked at.”
When asked “How?”, President Biden responded “There’s a lot of ways.”
There certainly are. The DOJ, FAA, FTC, NLRB, SDNY, & FWS have all taken action.
The FCC now joins them.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) December 13, 2023
Carr provided quite a lengthy catalog of the Biden administration’s “regulatory harassment of Elon Musk.” Here we may examine those instances of harassment in the order he presented them:
In August, Biden’s Department of Justice sued SpaceX for alleged discriminatory practices against immigrants.
In September, Biden’s Federal Aviation Administration completed a lengthy investigation into SpaceX’s failed Starship mega-rocket, which exploded minutes after takeoff in April. The FAA ordered the rocket grounded pending 63 corrective actions.
Do you think Biden’s targeting of Musk is politically motivated?
In March, Biden’s Federal Trade Commission tried pressuring Musk to reveal the identities of journalists associated with Twitter and the “Twitter Files,” a mass transparency project that exposed government involvement in social media censorship.
In October, Biden’s National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint on behalf of a former X employee, according to CNBC. The NLRB claimed Musk violated the National Labor Relations Act by firing software engineer Yao Yue, who expressed concern about sudden changes to company work requirements and “attempted to organize other Twitter workers.”
“If you can physically make it to an office and you don’t show up, resignation accepted,” Musk reportedly wrote in an email to employees. Apparently, that was too much for Yue and others.
In September, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York — part of Biden’s DOJ — targeted Musk with potential criminal charges for alleged undisclosed personal benefits derived from his car company, Tesla, according to the New York Post.
Even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service got in on the act.
By mid-November, the FWS still had not completed the environmental review that would allow for a second Starship launch under the terms of the FAA’s investigation, completed in September, according to CNBC.
With the exception of the FTC’s assault on journalism, all of these examples occurred between August and November. That certainly does fit a pattern of what Carr called “regulatory harassment.”
But the U.S. government’s recent obsession with Musk does not end there. In fact, if anything, Carr understated his case.
For instance, in January, a federal judge fined Twitter $350,000 for failing to comply in a timely fashion with a search warrant from Jack Smith, the special counsel bent on destroying former President Donald Trump. Smith had a warrant for Trump’s social media account, but Twitter waited three days after the court’s deadline before complying.
Also in January, the DOJ subpoenaed Tesla over a purported safety issue.
In May, the U.S. Virgin Islands — a U.S. territory — subpoenaed Musk to produce communications with the banking giant JPMorgan Chase pertaining to the now-deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Musk called the subpoena “idiotic on so many levels.” Indeed, one wonders if the subpoena’s authors intended to discredit Musk by tying him to Epstein in some vague way.
Musk, of course, has shown no signs of backing off his commitment to free speech.
Thus, the tyrannical Biden administration certainly will continue its persecution.
