Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan began targeting Elon Musk as soon as he acquired X, formerly known as Twitter, according to a report from the House Judiciary Committee published Monday.
The report listed a number of ways Khan weaponized the FTC to attack Musk after his acquisition of the company in October 2022.
Years before Musk bought Twitter, the FTC issued the company a consent decree — a legally binding promise by businesses to stop or correct certain practices.
Yet the FTC stalled for three years on enforcing the decree, until days after Musk bought the company. That’s when Khan called for “an immediate vote” to finalize the motion, according to the report.
Although Khan denied to commissioners that the expedited vote had anything to do with Musk’s acquisition, an email to Khan from her own attorney advisor was damning evidence to the contrary.
“The urgency is due to Elon Musk’s purchase of the company this week,” Khan’s attorney wrote.
The decree essentially allowed the FTC to demand whatever documents and information it wanted from Twitter, which is what it did.
The FTC sent more than a dozen letters to Twitter during the first three months of Musk’s ownership, with more than 350 demands for company information and documents.
That information included every communication in the company by or about Musk, which had little to do with the recently agreed-upon decree.
When later probed by the House Judiciary Committee, the FTC could not produce a legitimate reason as to why it was demanding all these documents, according to the report.
#NEWS: Judiciary Republicans release report on how the Biden-Kamala Harris FTC continues to harass @elonmusk.
Read it here: https://t.co/51rdcb9Fuy pic.twitter.com/Q3aOLehHfM
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) October 28, 2024
“The only reasonable explanation, then, for requiring all communications remotely related to Musk would be as a tool for the FTC to harass Musk,” the report said.
The FTC also targeted journalists associated with Twitter, fishing for information about those who “expose abuses by Big Tech and the federal government,” the report quoted. Those journalists likely included Twitter Files author and journalist Matt Taibbi.
“The FTC’s effort was an inherently politically motivated attempt to stifle Twitter at a time when Musk was taking steps to ‘reorient Twitter around free speech,’” the report said.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino issued a statement on the committee’s findings Monday.
“The FTC Commissioners clearly targeted our company for political reasons,” Yaccarino wrote on X. “To say this is troubling is an understatement. We’ve worked in good faith for years with the FTC and thought they had been as well. We need answers immediately.”
The FTC Commissioners clearly targeted our company for political reasons. To say this is troubling is an understatement. We’ve worked in good faith for years with the FTC and thought they had been as well. We need answers immediately. https://t.co/PpqPKb0CYG
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) October 28, 2024
The report faulted the Biden-Harris Administration as a whole for the FTC’s overreach.
“The First Amendment protection of freedom of speech is a fundamental freedom that is the cornerstone of American democracy,” the report read.
“The Biden-Harris Administration has demonstrated time and again a willingness to stifle speech that runs contrary to the prevailing narrative.
“Amazingly, the Biden-Harris Administration see free speech advocates, such as Elon Musk, as dangerous and worthy of harassment.”
