Biden Has A “Loophole” Trick Up His Sleeve To Target Elon Musk
(HorizonPost.com) – The Biden administration is seeking various avenues that would enable his gestapo to investigate Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and his Starlink ventures, according to a report from the Daily Caller. An original report by Bloomberg stated that the administration is looking into investigating the billionaire over national security concerns when Musk implicated that he would withdraw Starlink satellite communications services from Ukraine. The report comes after Musk allegedly spoke to Russia about peace in Ukraine, despite his denial over ever doing so.
One possibility that the White House is looking to to investigate Musk’s Twitter venture is through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). CFIUS was originally established in 1975 to conduct reviews on investments that were tied to foreign backers that might concern U.S. national security.
According to the outlet, the Biden administration expanded “CFIUS’ mandate to include reviews of foreign investors with third party ties to foreign governments, as well as to address cybersecurity risks and risks to U.S. persons’ sensitive data.”
CFIUS can now block foreign acquisitions of firms that might give countries like China information into “microelectronics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and biomanufacturing, quantum computing, advanced clean energy, and climate adaptation technologies,” according to the order, which comes at a time when the United States intelligence community realized that the Chinese Communist Party is stealing sensitive technological information for their own military, according to the Daily Caller.
The legality of such a review, however, remain unclear.
“You can make an argument—not a very strong one—that Biden’s Executive Order re: CFIUS issued last month could bring Elon Musk and his investors under the committee’s scrutiny,” said Arthur Herman, a senior fellow and director of the Hudson Institute’s Quantum Alliance Initiative. CIFUS “could allow the administration to lasso Musk’s business ventures into the CFIUS corral, on the grounds that having Saudi or Qatari or Chinese native investors might conceivably pose such a threat.”
Prince Al Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and Binance Holdings reportedly own a 5.2% stake in Twitter, which the administration see’s could be problematic for the U.S. But this was not a problem when Twitter was a safe bet for leftist propaganda?
“Unless the committee can produce evidence of a conspiracy, there is no reason the CFIUS’ scrutiny should apply to Elon Musk, an American citizen, buying a social media platform,” Will Thibeau, policy analyst in the Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center, told the DCNF. “The mere act of foreign investment does not cross the threshold for scrutiny, for that would subject nearly every other internet platform to an investigation.”
Arthur Herman also told the DNCF that the administration’s concern with Musk does not really have to with national security as much as the administration feeling threatened.
“This is really about pushback against Musk’s real threat to this administration: his threat to Twitter as a reliably liberal social media filter,” said Herman.
Copyright 2022, HorizonPost.com
