Blumenthal Exposes Billions in Legal Penalties & Fines Elon Musk Stands to Avoid Due to Government Power Grab

[WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (“PSI” or “the Subcommittee”), released a memo today estimating the legal liability Elon Musk may stand to avoid through his efforts to gut the federal workforce and exert influence over federal agencies. PSI’s analysis reveals for the first time that, as of January 2025, Musk and his companies faced at least $2.37 billion in potential liability due to federal investigations, litigation, or other regulatory actions, not including liabilities for at least 25 other federal investigations or regulatory matters where insufficient facts were available to establish cost estimates. The Subcommittee’s analysis also did not include other costs associated with federal enforcement, including legal fees and remediation costs, which could account for billions more.

As part of PSI’s ongoing inquiry into Musk and his conflicts of interest, Blumenthal wrote to Musk’s companies, seeking answers about federal investigations, litigation, or other regulatory proceedings involving the companies that were active on or about January 20, 2025, in order to understand what Musk and his companies stand to gain from his role in the federal government.

“Mr. Musk and his team at the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) have directed draconian cuts in resources and to the skilled workforce required to do thorough, prompt fact finding and identify statutory or regulatory violations that present harms to the American people. His demonstrated influence over senior leaders has enabled him to terminate or marginalize officials willing to challenge his authority. His threatened retaliation may intimidate many others. DOGE’s nonstop pursuit of our nation’s most sensitive data, coupled with its inability to articulate a clear purpose for doing so, fuels reasonable suspicions that Mr. Musk could use such data to bolster his position. The net result is to dilute, damage, or even stop accountability,” Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Tesla.

Blumenthal continued, “At the outset of this inquiry, the Subcommittee sought information from Tesla and other companies that Mr. Musk founded or over which he continues to substantially control, including the involvement of current or former Tesla employees in government agencies with regulatory authority over Tesla. To date, Tesla has failed to provide satisfactory responses to PSI’s inquiries, and many questions remain about the direct and indirect benefits it may be gaining from Mr. Musk’s actions.”

PSI was able to estimate potential financial liabilities for 40 of the 65 actions by eight federal agencies involving Musk and his companies that appear to have existed at the time President Trump took office, including:

• Up to $1.59 million in civil and criminal penalties for Neuralink’s alleged violations of the Animal Welfare Act while performing experiments on monkeys and pigs;
• $1.19 billion in potential liability as a result of Tesla’s allegedly false or misleading statements about its autopilot and full self-driving features;
• $633,009 in fines from SpaceX’s multiple failures to follow rocket launch requirements in 2023;
• A total of $713,114 in fines from 29 citations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) against SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company;
• $281 million in potential liability from Neuralink’s alleged false or misleading statements about its product risks, and many more.

PSI’s memo makes clear that Musk’s position at the helm of DOGE may have allowed him to evade oversight, derail investigations, and make litigation disappear whenever he so chooses—on his terms and at his command. The report notes that, even before President Trump took office, Musk succeeded in pressuring the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration—which had fined SpaceX—to resign. At least one civil enforcement action against SpaceX, estimated by the Subcommittee to have cost the company up to $46,100,000 in liability, was dismissed by the Department of Justice in February 2025.

The full text of the memo is available here. Blumenthal’s letters to Tesla, xAI, Neuralink, SpaceX, and The Boring Company are available here.

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