The Department of Justice of the Biden Administration sued Elon Musk’s SpaceX in 2023 for discrimination. They alleged that the company had not hired people who it was legally permitted to hire.
Yes, really. The case has been dropped. The new Trump administration Department of Justice filed a motion for the case to be dismissed with prejudice.
The U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday that they would dismiss an action against Elon Musk’s SpaceX. SpaceX had been accused by the government of discriminating against people based on their citizenship status.
The Justice Department filed a motion unopposed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas stating that it would file a notice of disqualification with prejudice. This means prosecutors will not be allowed to bring these charges again.
The motion didn’t say why the case had been dropped.
It’s possible that the case was dropped because SpaceX makes rocket boosters which are essentially missiles. This technology could be easily used to create, for example, an intercontinental missile. It seems like you’d want to be careful about who you hire for those jobs, yes? Elon Musk explains it in detail:
Elon Musk said in part:
As an example, some legal threats were made against SpaceX…we have been told for years that we cannot hire anyone who is not a permanent resident. SpaceX is developing advanced rocket technology which is considered a weapon technology. It’s because it is a key component of intercontinental missiles. Rocket technology is among the few things that are at the highest level of weaponry. We can deliver a bomb and a payload from anywhere in the world.
This would appear to be a contradiction. According to the NY Times article, the Biden DOJ did not see it this way.
The department stated that SpaceX failed to fairly evaluate job applications from people granted asylum or refugees in the United States. The department also said that SpaceX discouraged refugees and people granted asylum in the United States from applying for work, refused to hire even those who were qualified, and rejected them multiple times because of their citizenship.
Mr. Musk said that at the time, SpaceX had been told by export control laws that it was not allowed to hire anyone who wasn’t a US citizen or permanent resident. He had said on X, “This is another case of weaponizing the DOJ for politics.”
He was right. Musk also described this issue while speaking at CPAC 2025, which I saw in person, and his description of this case was, one might say, animated.
Elections are not without consequences. They can be good or bad. In this instance, an egregious case of lawfare against a man breaking all expectations in technology in many areas attracted the ire of the Biden administration as he was viewed as a friend of the (then) ex-President Donald Trump. This was a clear case of weaponizing the justice system. There’s a brand new president, and he, along with his DOJ, knows when they smell the rotten, digested digestive residue of horses. This stupid, malicious case is now over, and it’s a good thing.
