The Justice Dept. dismissed their own lawsuit against SpaceX, which alleged that the company discriminated against refugees in its hiring process. This is one of many examples of the Trump administration cracking down on legal actions and investigations that could damage Elon Musk’s finances.
At the time of this post in May 2025, many federal agencies that had criticized Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk and his many companies have seen major changes. These matters vary, from safety investigations on Tesla’s self-driving technology to alleged workplace safety violations at SpaceX.
A Department of Agriculture employee that had been investigating Musk’s Neuralink was fired. At other agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Trump and Musk have attempted to cut the number of employees, potentially hobbling those regulators’ ability to enforce the law against Musk’s companies, such as Tesla and X/Twitter.
The Labor Department has cancelled a planned civil rights review of Tesla. Another regulatory matter against SpaceX has entered settlement talks with the National Labor Relations Board. In over 40 federal agency matters, regulators haven’t taken public action on their investigations in months, suggesting the cases may have gone dormant.
Some agencies have helped Musk by relaxing regulations. In April 2025, the Transportation Department lowered the threshold for self-driving car companies like Tesla to report safety incidents, and this week in May, the Federal Aviation Administration gave SpaceX permission to perform 25 launches of its massive Starship per year, a fivefold increase.
According to research done by Democrats on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Musk and his companies faced an estimated $2.37 billion in liability if all the investigations and lawsuits resulted in action being taken, not including extra costs from the companies needing to operate differently. The report states 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.”
