White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Thursday seemed to confirm the Biden administration is considering investigating Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.
One day earlier, President Biden said: “I think that Elon Musk’s cooperations and/or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at. Whether or not he is doing anything inappropriate, I’m not suggesting that, I’m suggesting that it’s worth being looked at and that’s all I’ll say.”
On Thursday, a reporter asked Sullivan whether he could offer any additional information about why Biden said the acquisition should be looked and how the administration would investigate.
“Well you heard the president yesterday and the [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] process is the normal process through which transactions that might have a national security nexus get reviewed and I will defer to the CFIUS process rather than comment on it further,” Sullivan said.
The Biden administration began discussing last month whether the U.S. should perform national security reviews on some of Musk’s ventures, including his Twitter deal and SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, according to media reports.
Musk’s $44 billion Twitter takeover was funded in part by $7.1 billion from equity investors, including foreign sources such as Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, Qatar Holding, and Binance Holdings Ltd., a digital-asset exchange founded and run by a Chinese native, according to Reuters. Tesla, Musk’s electric-vehicle company, also pulls in roughly a quarter of its revenue from China.
CFIUS reviews acquisitions of and investments in American businesses by foreign buyers to see if the deals pose potential risks to national security. The Treasury secretary heads the panel, which is made up of other members from the State, Defense, Justice, Commerce, Energy and Homeland Security departments.
Musk is the richest man on Earth. He has an estimated net worth of $193.8 billion, according to Forbes. He completed his Twitter takeover just two weeks ago. He began mass layoffs at the company last week, firing an estimated 50 percent of the company’s 7,500 employees.
