State Attorney General targets Elon Musk over illegal government hacking
Earlier this week I wrote that Elon Musk was proving to be extraordinarily naive about how politics works. It never occurred to him that the media would identify and vet his young team of hackers. Musk also thinks that he’s invincible because he has Trump’s blessing, without realizing that if he violates state laws, state prosecutors can go after him. Sure enough that’s now happening.
New York Attorney General Letitia James just announced that she’s bringing a civil case against Elon Musk and Donald Trump over the illegal manner in which Musk has been accessing Americans’ personal data. James has jurisdiction to bring this case because some of the people whose data is being stolen are New Yorkers.
This is a civil case, not a criminal one. The upside to a civil case is that James may be able to get an immediate injunction against Musk in order to stop him from accessing people’s personal data. If Musk were to then continue doing so, she could conceivably bring criminal charges against him.
We’ll see where this goes. But over the past three weeks nearly every court ruling surrounding Trump’s antics has gone against him. So there’s strong reason to believe that this case could deliver a swift ruling against Trump and Musk.
