00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now
00:07is my Forbes colleague, staff writer Zach Everson. Zach, thanks so much for joining
00:11me.
00:12Thanks for having me, Brittany.
00:14You have some reporting on Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. You're saying that she could
00:19have violated House ethics rules. Can you explain?
00:23Sure. So she recently, all of the demonstrations going on against Tesla and Elon Musk, from
00:33her position as the chair of the Doge subcommittee in the House, wrote a letter asking the Department
00:39of Justice and the FBI to investigate what is causing those protests. Representative
00:46Greene owned shares in Tesla. So expert I spoke to said that could be problematic because
00:52members of Congress are not supposed to take official action, which may have a financial
00:57benefit for them. And that certainly can be the case, given her stake in Tesla.
01:02I want to first talk about the Tesla portion of this. Elon Musk, as we know, is the CEO
01:06of that company, and he's become more and more of a polarizing figure as of late with
01:12the Doge cuts and the influence he seemingly has on both the Trump administration and the
01:16president himself. So can you talk to us about these Tesla protests?
01:22Yeah. So Elon Musk took a position back in July, shortly after the attempted assassination
01:27of Donald Trump, that he became a big Trump supporter all in, spent about $250 million
01:34trying to help Trump win the election. And then, you know, as Trump won, he put Elon
01:40Musk in charge of Doge, which is looking for government efficiencies, places to cut. There
01:45have been major cuts, both in terms of services and in government employees. As a result,
01:50you're starting to see some protests against Tesla. Many of them are peaceful, where they're
01:55just demonstrations outside of dealerships. You're also hearing about people who are putting
02:00fires on Teslas. There are a couple, a few incidences where there have been some violence,
02:05whether it's been vandalism, or I believe in one case, there was also arson involved
02:10on a Tesla.
02:12I want you to talk to us and go through her history, Marjorie Hiller Greene's history
02:18with Tesla stock, how much Tesla stock that she owned now compared to before Elon Musk
02:23was this ardent Trump supporter, and before she became chair of the House Doge subcommittee.
02:31So she has a really interesting history here with Tesla. Now, when she came to Congress,
02:35she had between 15,000 and 50,000 shares in the company. But by the end of 2022, if she
02:43had any holdings in that, it was less than a thousand dollars, meaning she wouldn't need
02:46to be reported. She would need to report it. She did get divorced that year. So it seems
02:50most likely that her ex-husband got the Tesla shares in a divorce settlement. We don't know
02:55for sure. I reached out. They did not answer. So she started off owning less than a thousand
03:01dollars worth of Tesla in 2023. But by September 2024, when Musk increasingly was backing Trump,
03:10she started buying some shares. So she bought, made nine separate purchases of Tesla, totaling
03:15anywhere from $9,000 to $135,000. Now, why is it such a big range? It's because the House
03:22clerk's office doesn't require, the House doesn't require them to report specific amounts.
03:26They get broad ranges they can report it in. Most of her purchases, or rather all of her
03:31purchases fill in the $1,000 to $15,000 range.
03:36And now you have her writing on X posting, hey, DOJ, look into this, things like that.
03:43How exactly does this, could this bend the rules according to the House Ethics Committee?
03:49Right. Well, I mean, it's not a good look. It's not a good look that she is saying, you
03:54know, making pro-Tesla statements, making, you know, sending that letter under official
03:59capacity to DOJ and FBI. You know, it's also not a good look that she was appointed to
04:07be the head of the DOJ subcommittee back in November. Five of her Tesla stock purchases
04:11happened after that. So it was at a point where she knew that she would be supposed
04:15to have an oversight position over DOJ and she's buying stock in Tesla at that point.
04:20Now, what might happen with this is anybody's guess. You know, the Office of Congressional
04:26Ethics could look into this if they so chose. The House Committee on Ethics could look into
04:31this. You know, any punishment would have to be doled out by the House Committee, which
04:35is a bipartisan group. They don't have a great track record with implementing or with enforcing
04:41rules. So who knows what, if anything, will happen out of this?
04:44Let's talk about that a little bit, because whenever you and I talk about the House Ethics
04:48Committee, we always have the caveat of no one really likes being on this because who
04:53wants to snitch on a colleague? Is there any precedence here? What have they gotten a fellow
05:00congress member in trouble before for a similar action? What does that look like?
05:06Yeah, so there is a history of this. It wasn't stocks. But back in 2012, Representative Shelley
05:11Berkeley, a Democrat out of Nevada, the House Ethics Committee that she had improperly used
05:17her official position for her to benefit financially, when she reached out to government agencies
05:23on behalf of her husband's medical practice, trying to get them to pay up money that he
05:29believed he was owed. So they did flag her for that. So there is a precedent for that.
05:34Not exactly stock trading, but 2012 is a long time ago in terms of United States politics.
05:41I'm curious. I'm sure you reached out to her office regarding this story. Did they respond?
05:47They did. They did. They didn't. After publication, they got back to me and the quote from her
05:53spokesperson Nick Dyer was, it's about domestic terrorist attacks, Zach. You are nothing more
05:58than a Democrat troll. Enough out of you, which was somewhat amusing.
06:04Well, Zach, I don't want enough out of you because I still have a few more questions.
06:08So let's talk about Tesla stock. I'm curious how her shares are doing since you purchased
06:12them. Elon Musk, as we said, he's become increasingly controversial over the past couple of months,
06:18especially since he became really the face of Doge. How has Tesla been performing?
06:25It's not doing well. It is down to, last I checked, about $233 a share when it hit was
06:32over $400 at one point. We don't know exactly whether she's made money, whether Representative
06:38Greene has made money on this. Again, because it is done in such broad ranges between $1,000
06:43and $15,000 were her purchases. We do know that she made nine separate purchases and
06:50seven of those purchases, the stock price that day was at a price that is higher than
06:54what it currently is. So it certainly seems like she lost money, but we don't know for
06:58sure.
07:00And what about Elon Musk? We know from Forbes is reporting that he is the richest man in
07:04the world, the richest person in the world. Is Tesla's stock price affecting his bottom
07:10line?
07:11Yeah, it certainly is. He's only worth $325 billion right now, Brittany. So it's certainly
07:17hurting his line, bottom line. In fact, from the time I wrote the draft of this article
07:22to the time I gave it one last fact check, he had lost $5 billion. So, yeah, he's not
07:28doing well. I haven't seen any GoFundMe's up there, though, to help out poor Elon.
07:33Well, I'm sure you will keep us posted. Zach Everson, thank you for your reporting.
07:37My pleasure, Brittany. Thanks.
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