[flagged]
Presumably, the Justice Department used their time machine to get a sneak preview of that rather tedious expose?
If there's any correlation between Elon making wild political gestures and awkward stories about Elon and his companies he would really rather his fans ignore (or better still be very angry that people are reporting), it's the other way round...
The Twitter files broke last month [1]. That’s too quick for a federal investigation to launch and make document requests [2].
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/04/business/media/elon-musk-...
[2] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1318605/000095017023... page 86
DoJ. Not SEC.
But regardless, why would the DOJ need more then several weeks of notice?
The links are to Tesla’s filings with the SEC. They disclose various requests, including “from the DOJ for documents related to Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD features.” (The SEC is also investigating Musk and Tesla, but that isn’t new information.)
> why would the DOJ need more then several weeks of notice
Criminal cases are complicated. When there is flight or document destruction risk, Justice can quickly seize and freeze. But requests typically indicate months-old processes.
Can the 99th percentile importance case be expedited to several weeks of notice?
We don’t have evidence this wasn’t a product of retaliation. But the rapidity puts it in a narrow percentile. At which point one asks what’s the pay-off on a page-86 voluntary document request. (There are also investigations pre-dating December, including by the DoJ.)
It's tempting to complain about how only the wealthy and powerful get this kind of consideration, but if you think about it, it's no different from the way the IRS deals with any random taxpayers whose paperwork isn't in order. They don't bring out the rack and leg irons on day 1.
On the other hand, yes, if this is about FSD, then cutting Tesla 10 years of slack was too lenient by any reasonable standard.
It was a misread of the 2022 midterm run-up. In an alternate universe, the GOP took Congress and gave Elon goodies.
The whole manoeuvre is ridiculous since for over a decade he enjoyed bipartisan and trans-Pacific support.
His first public statement in favour of the Republican party was notably accompanied by the "watch out for dirty tricks" shortly after he'd have been asked to comment on allegations involving massages and promises of horses for a story that was due to be printed tomorrow.