Earlier than and after the 2024 election, Elon Musk made it transparent he disliked environmental rules and thought to be them a barrier to innovation, particularly given the fast timelines his corporations like to function on.
The billionaire spent greater than $250 million to lend a hand elect President Donald Trump and, within the first months of Trump’s 2d time period, Musk led the Division of Executive Potency, making cuts to the federal forms and regulatory workforce, together with environmental businesses, prior to a dramatic falling out with the president.
Musk-controlled corporations have additionally advanced affect in Texas, a state already recognized for a lighter contact on environmental legislation. Along with his lobbyists’ a hit monitor document within the Texas Legislature, Gov. Greg Abbott cited Musk as inspiration for the state growing its personal DOGE-style administrative center.
A brand new investigation from ProPublica, the Texas Newsroom, the Houston Chronicle and the Texas Tribune has discovered Musk and a Houston-area member of Congress have driven Texas and native officers to rent Musk’s Dull Co. for a $760 million flood keep watch over mission within the town.
Journalists Lauren McGaughy and Yilun Cheng discovered that Rep. Wesley Hunt helped pitch Dull’s involvement despite the fact that the corporate builds tunnels narrower than those widely studied by means of flood keep watch over mavens for the mission. An engineering knowledgeable warned that the quantity of the tunnels the corporate is proposing is probably not enough throughout a flood emergency. Any other stated that the proposed tunnels, which might be constructed at shallow depths, may just intervene with current application traces and bridge foundations.
Dull has described its mission in pitches to lawmakers as an “cutting edge and cost-effective resolution.” However mavens and a few native officers query whether or not Dull will have to be awarded the contract. One Democratic county commissioner informed the newsrooms that Musk shouldn’t be concerned within the Houston mission, arguing he has proven “blatant forget for democratic establishments and environmental protections.”
Hunt, Musk and representatives from Dull didn’t reply to the newsrooms’ request for remark prior to e-newsletter of the Aug. 28 tale. After e-newsletter, Hunt and Musk defended the mission on X, the social media platform that Musk owns. Musk claimed that the tunnels would charge not up to choices and that further tunnels may just building up go with the flow, however he equipped no additional main points.
Officers in Houston haven’t determined on a contractor for the tunneling mission but, and it is still observed which environmental rules will come into play.
Previously, Dull has discovered tactics to navigate round environmental regulations. A Dull tunnel mission in Las Vegas has skirted environmental, construction and hard work rules, a prior ProPublica and Town Forged Las Vegas investigation discovered.
Different Musk-owned corporations have confronted identical grievance. Over the last yr, environmental teams have additionally raised issues about an xAI supercomputing facility in Memphis, Tennessee. Musk didn’t reply to ProPublica’s request for remark.
Adam Kron, a senior legal professional on the environmental advocacy team Earthjustice, stated any corporate ignoring or heading off rules totally reminds him of the fracking growth within the early 2010s, when corporations moved temporarily to drill, poisoning some native communities’ groundwater within the procedure. “There’s a gold rush mentality of having in the market [first] and paying the wonderful later, as soon as you’ll turn out it,” Kron stated. “When you’ve got that more or less tradition, you do see extra of the infamous makes an attempt not to search the right kind lets in or now not conform to the factors.”
Right here’s what to find out about Dull and different Musk-affiliated corporations’ historical past of bumping up towards environmental rules.
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Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Pictures
Dull Co.
In Las Vegas, a prior ProPublica investigation discovered Dull was once ready to skirt construction, environmental and hard work rules by means of structuring a transportation mission as an absolutely personal project and leaning on its native connections.
Dull is setting up a deliberate 68-mile tunnel device underneath Las Vegas the place Teslas ferry passengers beneath town’s city core. The mission have shyed away from long opinions by means of construction its first segment close to the conference heart underneath the auspices of the tourism authority. Since then, Dull has gained county popularity of dozens of extra miles of tunnels underneath difficult to understand maintaining corporate names.
Since Dull’s Las Vegas mission started, it’s been cited or fined for wastewater violations. It additionally paid retroactive charges for lets in after being stuck tunneling with out them, journalists Daniel Rothberg and Dayvid Figler discovered. Staff for the corporate have filed court cases with the state Occupational Protection and Well being Management about “ankle-deep” water within the tunnels, muck spills and critical chemical burns. Nevada OSHA fined the corporate greater than $112,000, after an investigation in 2023, however Dull has disputed the regulator’s allegations and contested the violations.
Dull had already been hit with more than one violations over its control of commercial wastewater at its headquarters in Bastrop, Texas, by means of the Texas Fee on Environmental High quality. The corporate, whilst in most cases denying the allegations, was once in the end fined greater than $9,000 and required to make adjustments on the website online, in line with a TCEQ spokesperson. In 2023, the corporate implemented for a allow to offload greater than 100,000 gallons in line with day of commercial wastewater from Dull and SpaceX into a close-by river, nevertheless it was once met with native resistance. A yr later, Dull agreed to switch wastewater to a brand new town remedy plant, anticipated to open in early 2026.
Dull didn’t reply to ProPublica’s request for remark.
xAI
In June 2024, the Memphis Chamber of Trade introduced xAI, Musk’s synthetic intelligence corporate, was once putting in an information heart at a former production website online within the southern a part of town. That got here as a marvel to a couple participants of the Town Council, considered one of whom informed NPR she first heard about it at the native night time information.
Inside a couple of months, Musk stated the information heart, dubbed Colossus, was once on-line. The ability essentially powers the corporate’s chatbot and generative symbol maker, Grok, which is built-in into X.
The electrical energy wanted for the computing energy was once double what the native application may just right away supply, so xAI used methane gasoline turbines to deliver the information heart on-line, burning fossil fuels with out a allow or air pollution keep watch over applied sciences for almost a yr.
“It’s a real gasoline plant in the course of an area, and also you don’t want any allowing?” Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson, who lives 3 miles from the information heart, informed CNN in Would possibly. “One thing has failed vastly and considerably with our device of assessments and balances.”
In January, amid wider group chase away, xAI implemented for a allow for 15 turbines on website online. Fighters have aerial imagery they are saying presentations greater than 30 turbines showing to be operational on website online as past due as April. Corporate officers have stated they wouldn’t set up air pollution controls on any of the generators till the allow was once authorized, which came about in early July.
The corporate maintained lets in weren’t important to start out as a result of an exemption for turbines on website online for not up to a yr, a rationale Shelby County’s Well being Division agreed with. Wendi C. Thomas just lately reported for ProPublica and MLK50: Justice Via Journalism on how town’s Chamber of Trade went to odd lengths to advertise xAI. Memphis’ mayor has subsidized and defended the mission, pronouncing town will deal with air pollution issues with “unbiased environmental specialists” and “group receive advantages insurance policies.” Tennessee’s governor has touted the alternatives the power will deliver to town. The EPA was once starting to glance into whether or not the exemption implemented to xAI in October of ultimate yr; new EPA head Lee Zeldin just lately met with the corporate.
Group participants packed an April listening to at the lets in, and state representatives for the world have puzzled the mayor’s consider in xAI, particularly as the corporate plans to arrange a 2d knowledge heart in Memphis.
Environmental advocates have stated that xAI wanted lets in as a result of the scale of the turbines and the scope of the air pollution. In early April, the Southern Environmental Regulation Middle estimated the generators may just produce, in a yr, between 1,200 and a couple of,000 lots of nitrogen oxides, a smog-forming air pollution related to deficient respiration well being in within reach spaces, in addition to the carcinogen formaldehyde.
The corporate’s turbines are just a few miles from a traditionally Black group already thought to be a poisonous air air pollution sizzling spot as a result of greater than a dozen polluting amenities within reach, together with a metal plant, a refinery and tool plant. The county has observed constantly low air high quality and the perfect fee of ER admission for bronchial asthma assaults in Tennessee. ProPublica’s air toxics map confirmed a most cancers chance sizzling spot 4 instances the nationwide reasonable within reach prior to xAI moved in.
Rules and allowing are in position as a result of unchecked air pollution will have wide-ranging affects on a close-by group, without reference to trade, stated Jennifer Duggan, govt director on the Environmental Integrity Mission, a watchdog nonprofit. “The environmental regulations at the books are designed to give protection to public well being and our herbal assets. If there is not any enforcement, when there are violations of the ones regulations, then there is not any coverage from business air pollution for the ones communities.”
Whilst the have an effect on to a group relies on the trade in query, in addition to period and seriousness of the air pollution, Duggan stated, it may well imply larger chance of untimely mortality, upper well being care prices, misplaced college days, misplaced productiveness for employees, delivery defects or even mental trauma.
Allows in most cases require amenities to function safely and set up air pollution controls, Duggan stated. If the ones controls don’t seem to be put in — or became off — “then you definitely’ve were given extra air pollution within the air than the legislation lets in,” which places other people in danger.
The corporate didn’t reply to ProPublica’s request for remark.
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Brandon Bell/Getty Pictures
SpaceX
Whilst SpaceX continuously launches its Falcon rockets to ship satellites and astronauts into orbit, Musk’s final objective for the corporate is way additional afield. Starship, SpaceX’s massive blended reusable rocket and release automobile, is meant to in the end lend a hand ship people and load to Mars, and it’s recently a part of NASA’s effort to go back astronauts to the moon.
However this system has already run into problems right here on Earth, together with violations of fresh water rules throughout release checks and a cross-border investigation into falling particles.
Starship’s release pad is alongside the Texas beach, not up to 5 miles from the Mexico border, surrounded by means of a state park and a countrywide natural world safe haven established to give protection to the biodiversity of the decrease Rio Grande River. A number of the animals on this safe haven are fragile shorebird populations. When requested about Starship checks in 2018, Musk stated on the Texas website online “we’ve were given numerous land with no one round, and so if it blows up, it’s cool,” a remark that angered the citizens of a close-by village.
The primary Starship release vaporized a part of the release website online and threw particles so far as 6 miles. Then the EPA and Texas Fee on Environmental High quality stated Starship launches in 2023 and 2024 violated the Blank Water Act for discharging untreated business wastewater. SpaceX implemented for a wastewater allow in July 2024 and later stated it “essentially” disagreed with the allegations from regulators however settled for approximately $150,000 to “focal point our power on finishing the missions.” In February of this yr, state regulators granted SpaceX a allow.
Starship’s fast-moving agenda has suffered setbacks this yr, with explosions throughout 3 launches or checks to this point. Mexico has threatened to sue over particles and attainable environmental contamination crossing over the border. SpaceX stated in reaction there have been “no hazards to the encompassing subject.”
However the Federal Aviation Management just lately authorized SpaceX for as much as 25 Starship launches a year, and the Trump management has signed an govt order saying makes an attempt to “get rid of or expedite” environmental evaluate of rocket launches by means of the FAA, ProPublica’s Heather Vogell and Topher Sanders reported.
SpaceX didn’t reply to ProPublica’s request for remark.
Tesla
Whilst the recognition of electrical cars like Tesla in California has resulted in a notable decline in carbon air pollution from vehicles there, the corporate’s manufacturing facility within the state has been again and again admonished for freeing poisonous air air pollution and different poisonous chemical substances into the encompassing group. Tesla’s Bay Space facility has gained extra air high quality warnings up to now 5 years than all different corporations in California, save one: a Chevron refinery, in line with reporting by means of The Wall Boulevard Magazine.
By means of 2022, the corporate were fined by means of each the native air high quality district over well being issues and the EPA for breaking federal air high quality regulations. In June 2024, the district ordered Tesla to right kind ongoing violations of poisonous air air pollution coming from the manufacturing facility’s paint retail outlets, allegations the corporate denied. The corporate is recently within the technique of enforcing an abatement plan, in line with a spokesperson for the Bay Space Air District.
One by one, dozens of California counties sued Tesla in 2024 over claims of illegally dumping hazardous waste produced at its facility and native provider facilities. The corporate settled the lawsuit for $1.5 million, now not admitting to wrongdoing however agreeing to 5 years of obligatory coaching and unbiased waste audits.
Musk had already moved Tesla’s headquarters to Texas in 2021, partially over court cases about California regulatory tradition. However, as the Magazine reported in November 2024, Texas regulators have additionally cited the corporate for movements at Tesla’s massive Gigafactory simply outdoor of Austin, together with for dumping untreated wastewater, freeing air pollution in far more than its allow after which now not reporting it.
A former Texas worker despatched a whistleblower memo to the EPA in 2024 accusing the corporate of asking workforce to deceive executive regulators, the Magazine reported, together with growing an “elaborate ruse” throughout an inspection to verify a bothered furnace handed an emissions take a look at. Each the EPA and Texas environmental regulators opened a “initial inquiry” associated with the memo in November 2024, in line with the Magazine. The EPA didn’t reply to ProPublica’s query concerning the standing of the inquiry and pointed us to the TCEQ. A TCEQ spokesperson stated it would now not remark “to strengthen the integrity of all felony investigations carried out by means of TCEQ.”
Tesla didn’t reply to the Magazine’s request for remark. However an afternoon after the tale was once printed, Musk reposted an X person who discussed the Magazine tale, including the message: “Legacy media is a sewage pipe of lies.”
Tesla didn’t reply to ProPublica’s request for remark.
The folk suffering from environmental violations don’t seem to be simply the within reach group, Duggan stated, however the staff at polluting amenities as neatly. “They’re in point of fact at the entrance line in sure industries,” she stated.
