Insight: As Musk gains influence, questions hover over US probes into his empire

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

62% : Trump appointed Musk to co-lead a new "Department of Government Efficiency," a private entity advising on slashing budgets and regulations.
59% : Before the election, Musk posted: "I have never asked [Trump] for any favors, nor has he offered me any."A Trump-transition spokesperson called Musk a "brilliant" entrepreneur and said Trump's administration would ensure law and order, "treating all Americans equally."The Musk-related cases could languish or be dropped by Trump-appointed agency and department heads, the current and former U.S. officials said.
55% : His stories often involve corporate crises linked to bankruptcy proceedings, mass tort litigation and government investigations.
55% : Rachael LevyThomson ReutersPulitzer Prize-winning business correspondent based in Washington, D.C. who has reported on the inner workings of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, American health care and national security.
47% : Musk's potential to have extraordinary clout with the new administration raises questions about the fate of federal investigations and regulatory actions affecting his business empire, of which at least 20 are ongoing, according to three sources familiar with SpaceX and Tesla operations and the companies' interaction with the U.S. government, as well as five current and former officials who have direct knowledge of individual probes into Musk's companies.
37% : The billionaire has long railed against government oversight, portraying himself as a victim of bureaucratic zealots stifling his companies' potentially life-saving innovations.
37% : "Some legal experts downplayed the risk of political interference from Musk, noting that an investigation's lack of progress could signal insufficient evidence.
34% : The SEC is not the only investigative agency Musk has defied and accused of political harassment.
31% : Trump has already named a new SEC chair to replace Gensler, who plans to resign when Trump is inaugurated.
29% : Three sources familiar with SpaceX's government interactions said any scrutiny into Musk's contacts with a U.S. adversary would be unlikely under Trump, who has picked tech billionaire Jared Isaacman to run NASA.
17% : The White House will soon be occupied by Donald Trump -- whom Musk spent more than a quarter-billion dollars to help elect -- rather than Joe Biden, who appointed Gensler.
15% : Trump's DOJ picks, for example, include lawyers who defended him in criminal and impeachment trials and a nominee for FBI chief whom Musk vocally supported and who has repeatedly vowed to pursue Trump's enemies, one current and three former DOJ officials said.Lower-level DOJ officials could also exercise prosecutorial discretion to avoid aggressively pursuing Musk companies in light of his relationship with Trump, said Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney in Detroit during the Obama administration who also worked as a federal prosecutor during the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations.  

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.