A federal probe into a possible misuse of Tesla funds, centered around the existence of an alleged glass house for CEO Elon Musk, is broader than was previously thought, according to the Wall Street Journal. Beyond looking into the use of company funds to build the glass house, the U.S. Department of Justice is further investigating the perks and benefits Musk has received from Tesla as part of a criminal investigation stretching back to 2017.
The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, said that the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York is also seeking information about transactions made between Tesla and Musk's other entities. He owns and runs Neuralink, the Boring Company, xAI, SpaceX and the social media platform X.
The widening of the investigation is an indication, according to the Journal, that prosecutors may be pursuing potential criminal charges against Musk.
The glass house, known as "Project 42," is also separately under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Details of these federal investigations into the supposed project came several weeks after the Journal reported that several of Tesla's own board members had begun an investigation into the same issue. Zack Kirkhorn, Tesla's former CFO, among them.
Musk said in a late August post that he is "not building a house of any kind, let alone a glass one. I’m not building a house anywhere."
The billionaire CEO repeated this claim Sept. 20, saying: "This would be next-level absurd. I'm not building a house of any kind anywhere."
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According to a brief section in Walter Isaacson's recent biography, "Elon Musk," the Tesla chief did indeed talk about a glass house, though Isaacson said that Musk "put off building it."
"It should be like something fell out of space, like a structure from another galaxy landed in the lake," Musk told Isaacson.
The amping up of these reported investigations into Musk and Tesla (TSLA) -) comes in the midst of a series of ongoing investigations into the electric vehicle company. The California Attorney General, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Department of Justice and the SEC are all actively investigating the company over self-driving safety concerns.
If you work for Tesla, contact Ian by email ian.krietzberg@thearenagroup.net or Signal 732-804-1223
