ALBAWABA — Elon Musk's foreign business dealings are "worthy" of federal scrutiny, US President Joe Biden on Wednesday told reporters in his first public remarks since the US midterm elections.
"I think that Elon Musk's cooperation and/or technical relationships with other countries is worthy of being looked at," Biden replied when asked if Musk is a threat to US national security and if the US should investigate his recent $44 billion joint acquisition of Twitter with foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.
Biden elaborated that he wasn't suggesting whether or not Musk was doing anything inappropriate, but rather suggesting that the issue was worth being looked at.
Following Musk's takeover of Twitter, Saudi Arabia's Kingdom Holding Company and the private office of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal jointly became the social media company's second-largest shareholder behind the Tesla and SpaceX CEO.
Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund owns a roughly 17% stake in Kingdom Holding Company, which is an investment firm owned by bin Talal, while other foreign investors are a subsidiary of Qatar's sovereign wealth fund, and Binance, a Malta-based cryptocurrency exchange formerly headquartered in China.
The Washington Post reported last week that officials within the US Treasury Department had contacted Twitter to "learn more about the structure of its new ownership and the confidential agreements Musk struck with his foreign investors" to see whether investments could potentially be used to leverage access to personal user data.
