Don’t forget about Elon’s significant financial ties to Saudi Arabia

https://www.axios.com/2022/11/01/elon-musk-twitter-saudi-arabia

“The Saudis could have cashed out, like most everyone else. That would have been the financially sound thing to do. Instead, they allied with Musk … There’s a clear political motivation to their decision, and CFIUS should get to the bottom of it.”

A source familiar with the situation adds that Murphy’s concern is exacerbated by the large amount of debt that Musk/Twitter now must service, and what demands that may enable Saudi to make. Particularly given that Musk, at least for the moment, is Twitter’s sole director.

Murphy on Monday asked the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) to investigate “potential national security concerns” arising from Saudi Arabia and Qatar’s involvement in Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter.

Saudi Arabia and members of its extended royal family are regular investors in U.S. tech companies, both directly and via private equity and venture capital funds. But they’ve been largely ignored by CFIUS, which investigated just six Saudi-involved deals between 2019 and 2021. CFIUS is empowered to recommend to the President that mergers be blocked on national security grounds, including for transactions that have already closed. Many of its recent recommendations to that effect have involved China.

https://fortune.com/2023/01/23/elon-musk-says-he-had-saudi-backing-tesla-trial-testimony/

Elon Musk returned to federal court Monday in San Francisco, testifying that he believed he had locked up financial backing to take Tesla private during 2018 meetings with representatives from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund