"Could a person who can stir up the global capital markets with a tweet also manipulate the invisible power game in the same way?" This is not a conspiracy theory, but a heavy question thrown to the world after a 14-month investigation by the Wall Street Journal.
Just now, the Wall Street Journal won the highest honor in the journalism industry, the Pulitzer Prize, for its in-depth investigative report on Elon Musk. This report, known as "the ultimate revelation of the most powerful person in Silicon Valley", not only shocked the journalism industry, but also caused the entire capital market, political circles and even the technology circle to fall into collective reflection.
Over the past decade, Musk has been synonymous with "changing the world." From Tesla's electric cars, SpaceX's rockets, brain-computer interfaces, Starlink, to X (formerly Twitter), he has been packaged as the embodiment of technological innovation, a capital hero, and even the hope for the future of mankind. However, this investigation by the Wall Street Journal, using internal emails, testimonies from 34 employees, financial data, and unpublished videos, stripped this "hero" of his sacred halo and presented a naked, real, and complex Musk.
What did the investigation reveal?
First, it is an "extremely private" corporate empire. Musk's mood, preferences, and sudden whims at 3 a.m. can directly determine the fate of the company. Some executives were fired on the spot for "making Musk feel offended" at the board meeting; at SpaceX's Texas base, women were publicly humiliated for dressing "not like engineers." "Either live on your knees or get out" has become an unspoken "unwritten rule" among employees.
Secondly, the myth of "free speech" has been shattered. After acquiring Twitter in 2022, Musk announced that he would turn it into a "bastion of free speech." However, the investigation found that the opposite was true: he personally ordered the banning of hundreds of accounts that criticized him, including reporters from the New York Times; in the 2024 US midterm elections, Platform X pushed far-right content about "ballot fraud" while suppressing voting mobilization information supporting the Democratic Party. Even more shocking is that he told employees internally: "What we want to create is not free speech, but the authority of freedom." This sentence almost shattered all his self-proclaimed "neutral platform."
A deeper crisis also emerged in the field of international transactions. The Wall Street Journal revealed that SpaceX secretly sold Starlink terminals to sanctioned regimes such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Burmese military government through third-party agents. These devices were used to monitor the opposition, track dissidents, and even directly for battlefield communications. The transactions were settled through shell companies in the UAE, bypassing US export controls. Although SpaceX denied knowledge of the matter, internal emails showed that Musk himself had approved a "special approval channel" for Myanmar at least once. Currently, the US Treasury Department has launched an investigation.
In finance, Musk's "innovation" is also frightening. (The Wall Street Journal) Through an investigation of data from multiple Tesla warehouses and sales systems, it was found that as many as 27% of vehicles were "not actually delivered" but "pre-accounted", and then the unsalable inventory was hidden through returns and exchanges. This "financial report beautification" method not only misled investors, but also suspected of systematic financial fraud. What's more serious is that Musk himself sold hundreds of millions of dollars of Tesla stocks 10 minutes before learning that "the United States will increase auto tariffs", triggering the China Securities Regulatory Commission to intervene in the investigation and multiple class action lawsuits.
The most ironic thing is "Dogecoin". The Wall Street Journal's investigation found that Musk used his influence on the X platform to promote the narrative that "Dogecoin is the future payment method". He used at least 38 anonymous wallets to build positions before the "Government Efficiency Department" policy was released, and used information asymmetry to complete arbitrage operations. The abbreviation "DOGE" of the "Government Efficiency Department" is exactly the same as Dogecoin, which is obviously not a coincidence.
If these investigations were just "celebrity gossip," the public might be able to laugh it off. But the significance of the Wall Street Journal goes far beyond exposing personal scandals. Through a series of details and evidence, it points out a deeper question: When a person has control over technology, capital, discourse power, and media platforms, who can supervise him? When a "private entrepreneur" can influence elections, export information, and intervene in military transactions through his own company, where can the boundaries of the democratic system be drawn?
After the investigation was released, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Treasury Department jointly set up a special investigation team against Musk; Tesla's sales fell 14% year-on-year, and executives frequently resigned; some military orders of SpaceX were questioned by Congress; and advertisers on the X platform withdrew in large numbers. Musk's business empire has exposed fundamental risks due to his personal likes and dislikes and the lack of a governance mechanism.
(The Wall Street Journal) Winning the Pulitzer Prize with this series of reports is not only a victory for news investigation, but also a proof of the ideal of journalism - in an era of "traffic supremacy", there are still people willing to face power and uncover the complex truth behind the myth.
So, when the truth is in front of us, how should ordinary investors deal with it? Faced with a market environment with asymmetric information, concentrated power, and lagging supervision, we may need a set of intelligent tools to help us distinguish noise from signals in a noisy market. For example, Mlion.ai, an investment research assistant that combines AI language models, on-chain data, and sentiment analysis, can provide users with calmer and more comprehensive market insights by integrating news, finance, and on-chain dynamics. Especially in companies like Musk where "personal factors outweigh corporate governance", it is more important to track the addresses of large investors and monitor public opinion changes in real time through AI data tools than to blindly trust "myths".
After all, when the halo fades, the market only recognizes the truth, not stories.
Disclaimer: The above content is for information sharing only and does not constitute any investment advice!
