(Jason Cohen, Daily Caller News Foundation) Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie questioned Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday about why the Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating Elon Musk but not Mark Zuckerberg, insinuating there is a political double standard at play.
Massie noted during a House Judiciary Committee hearing that Musk, the owner of X — formerly Twitter — exposed left-wing censorship while Zuckerberg, the CEO of tech giant Meta, spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help Democrats in elections. Musk has two companies that are under investigation by the DOJ, while Zuckerberg’s companies are not under any, Massie said.
“[Musk] became a critic of the [President Joe Biden] administration and exposed the censorship regime,” Massie stated. “The DOJ has opened not one but two investigations of Elon Musk. Mark Zuckerberg, on the other hand, spent $400 million in 2020, tilting the elections secretly for Democrats. No investigations whatsoever.”
“To the American public, these look like mafia tactics,” Massie added. “‘You pays your money, we look the other way. You get in our way, we punish you.’ The American public sees what these tactics are.”
Musk enabled journalists to publish internal document batches from X of communications before his takeover, called the “Twitter Files,” revealing that Biden campaign staff flagged posts related to his son Hunter for the company to censor.
Musk’s Tesla is under investigation for benefits the CEO has received from his company since 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Furthermore, Musk’s SpaceX is under investigation by the DOJ for alleged discrimination based on its hiring policies, according to an August filing. The DOJ alleges SpaceX discriminated against people seeking asylum and refugees by not hiring them.
During the 2020 election, the Center for Tech and Civic Life received hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan’s Chan Zuckerberg Initiative “to promote safe and reliable voting.” CTCL used the money to help likely Democratic districts enlist more poll workers, adding more ballot drop boxes and expanding mail-in vote processing.
The DOJ, Meta and X did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
