Elon Musk’s newest target is the regulator that fined him $20m and is still investigating him

DOGE overlord Elon Musk is now aiming his crosshairs at the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), a move that flies in the face of Donald Trump’s denials claiming that the Tesla CEO had no conflicts of interest as he embarks on a federal firing and cost-cutting crusade.

This time Musk is investigating the exact same agency that is currently targeting him – and fined him $22 million for security violations in a past case.

The news was revealed on a “DOGE SEC” X account with a gray Twitter badge marking it as a legitimate site of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency operation. The account issued its first tweet on Monday, asking the public’s help to report any SEC “waste, fraud and abuse.”

As CEO of Tesla, Musk was embroiled in a months-long war with the SEC over posts about taking his electric vehicle company private at $420 a share. SEC officials said he was misleading investors with the post. He and Tesla were both eventually fined $20 million.

Musk in December berated the SEC concerning another case against him: its ongoing lawsuit over whether he properly disclosed his ownership stake in Twitter before he bought the operation in 2022.

The suit, filed last month, alleges Musk violated federal securities laws, enabling him to purchase shares of Twitter at artificially low prices before his $44 billion takeover, and causing “substantial economic harm” to investors left in the dark about Musk’s stake.

Musk, conveniently, has called the SEC “just another weaponized institution doing political dirty work.” And he’s now investigating it backed by the authority of Donald Trump.

The DOGE SEC tweet was notable for a few reasons: It occurred on President’s Day, and it appeared to be DOGE’s first X site for a targeted federal agency. One other created for the Department of Education, @DOGE_ED also tweeted for the first time Monday.

The same plea for help from the public on the DOGE SEC site was also posted on a DOGE IRS site.

The Independent located one other similar X account following a similar naming convention: @DOGE_USAID. But it was unclear whether the restricted account missing an X authenticity badge was created by DOGE or was unrelated.

Musk’s DOGE team is behind the firing of thousands of federal workers since Donald Trump’s presidency while thousands more have been placed on leave as their agencies are “restructured” and in some cases targeted for elimination entirely.

Some of those firings are currently tied up in court battles, but tens of thousands of Americans (including some who recently moved to Washington D.C. for new jobs) are now without work.

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The Washington Post and CNN separately reported on Monday that DOGE agents seeking to implement cost-cutting efforts at the Internal Revenue Service are currently seeking access to a sensitive system that includes the personal data of American taxpayers, including Social Security numbers and bank accounts.

Officials are reported to be “imminently” set to sign a memorandum granting DOGE officials access to agency datasets and tax systems, including the Integrated Data Retrieval System.

The capital region is far from the only area to be hit by DOGE’s firing spree and the termination of federal spending. The canceling or halting of grants and other federal programs around the country has affected research facilities, national parks, and other federally funded facilities, organizations and projects in many states.

Last week’s firing of hundreds of experts in charge of overseeing America’s nuclear arsenal was only the latest example of DOGE shooting off pink slips first and asking questions later. The Musk-led team was struggling to rehire those employees on Friday. It was reportedly difficult to locate the axed specialists to rehire them because their contact information had been erased from the National Nuclear Security System.

Musk could directly benefit financially from his DOGE team’s work.

SpaceX, Musk’s private spaceflight company, for example, could end up being the winner if DOGE’s cuts extend to NASA, which as of last week was under a “deep-dive audit” into its finances at the hand of Musk’s underlings, Bloomberg reported. Tasks that could no longer be accomplished by a Musk-hobbled NASA could presumably be picked up by SpaceX, compensated by taxpayer-funded contracts.

“They are going to look – similarly to what they’ve done at other agencies – at our payments,” acting NASA administrator Janet Petro told reporters last week.