The Wall Street Journal reveals Musk scandal wins Pulitzer Prize What was revealed?

Source: Lao Yu casually says

In the past decade or so, Elon Musk has almost become the recognized person to "change the world." From Tesla, SpaceX, the original Twitter, to brain-machine interfaces and Starlink, Musk has seemingly become the embodiment of technological innovation, a hero of the free market, and even a guide for humanity's exploration of outer space.

However, from 2024 to 2025, The Wall Street Journal conducted a series of in-depth investigations into Musk lasting 14 months, revealing his indescribable behaviors in corporate governance, political activities, international transactions, and media manipulation.

The Wall Street Journal has just won the Pulitzer Prize for this batch of reports, with the reason for the award being "revealing serious issues faced by one of today's most powerful tech figures between power, interests, and public responsibility."

This is a victory for investigative journalism, revealing a fact to the public: Musk is not a savior; he is merely a person who is crazy about accumulating wealth by exploiting the information he possesses, his influence, and the loopholes in the system.

In the Wall Street Journal's in-depth report on Musk titled "Inside Elon Musk’s Warped Workplace," the reporter interviewed a total of 34 current or former employees from Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company. These individuals described a highly "personalized" management system, where Musk's emotions, quirks, sleep habits, and even sudden whims directly influence company strategy and employee fate.

The report points out that Musk often sends directives via email or Slack at 3 AM, demanding "immediate execution"; some executives have been fired on the spot for "making Musk feel disrespected multiple times during board meetings"; at SpaceX's Texas base, female employees have been humiliated for dressing in a way that is "not considered like an engineer."

In Musk's companies, "either survive on your knees or roll out," has become an informal code of conduct for employees.

This set of reports not only reveals Musk's role as a "terrifying mentor" in the workplace but also reflects his almost pathological pursuit of "absolute control" over his employees.

Since Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022, he has claimed to make it a "fortress of free speech," but an investigation by The Wall Street Journal shows a completely different reality.

The report "How Musk’s Takeover of Twitter Amplified Conspiracies and Silenced Critics" points out: There is internal data confirming that Musk personally ordered the banning of hundreds of accounts that criticized him, including some reporters from The New York Times.

During the 2024 U.S. midterm elections, platform X heavily promoted far-right content regarding "ballot fraud," while suppressing posts related to voter mobilization from the Democratic Party; Musk has close ties with several far-right social media opinion leaders (such as Jordan Peterson and Tucker Carlson) and collaborates with them to promote vaccine conspiracy theories.

A clip of an internal video shows Musk telling X employees: "What we want to create is not free speech, but free authority."

This completely shatters the lie that Musk is building a "neutral platform."

Another report from The Wall Street Journal titled "SpaceX Sold Starlink Access to Sanctioned Regimes" reveals that Elon Musk's SpaceX secretly sold a large number of Starlink satellite terminals to Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Myanmar military government, and Venezuela through third-party agents.

These devices are used to monitor opposition, track activists; they are used by the military for border communications and battlefield coordination; and they all circumvent the U.S. export control system by settling through shell companies based in the UAE.

Although SpaceX officially denies being informed, emails obtained by The Wall Street Journal show that Musk himself approved a "special channel" for the Myanmar military regime at least once. After the incident was exposed, the U.S. Treasury Department has officially launched an investigation.

This is no longer just a technical outflow, but a betrayal of democratic values. It is clear that Musk will unhesitatingly choose the former between "profit" and "justice."

"Musk’s Numbers Game: The Hidden Risks Behind Tesla’s Financial Reports" is one of the most technically detailed deep reports by The Wall Street Journal about Musk.

Journalists obtained inventory records and sales system data from Tesla warehouses in multiple locations and found that up to 27% of the delivered vehicles were not actually delivered to users, but rather "accounted for in advance" and then returned; Tesla has used this method of "hiding unsold inventory" multiple times to maintain its stock price and price-to-earnings ratio.

Elon Musk himself sold off hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Tesla stock just 10 minutes before learning about the U.S. government's news regarding "automobile tariffs." This set of investigations directly led to the SEC's involvement and triggered multiple class-action lawsuits. Reports stated: "This is not a technical issue with the financial report, but rather a systematic issue of systemic corruption."

During Trump's second term, Musk was appointed as the head of the "Department of Government Efficiency." Although this agency is nominally about "cutting government waste," a Wall Street Journal investigation found that it is actually an important means for Musk to conduct cryptocurrency transactions.

"Elon Musk, the White House, and the Dogecoin Scheme" points out: Musk has repeatedly proposed to "pilot the federal payment system to accept Musk's Dogecoin"; he holds at least 38 anonymous wallets related to Dogecoin through subsidiaries, establishing positions before major policy announcements from the Department of Efficiency.

Elon Musk's virtual currency Dogecoin has the same abbreviation as the Department of Efficiency, DOGE, which is not a coincidence; Musk often uses puns online for hype.

Elon Musk is using the X platform to promote the narrative that "Dogecoin is the future payment of America" for self-promotion, and he has made over $12 billion in profits from Dogecoin-related transactions.

This series of reports from The Wall Street Journal won the Pulitzer Prize based on three factors.

First, the evidence collection methods are meticulous and the legal understanding is precise: the reporter team of the newspaper obtained materials through anonymous interviews, internal emails, financial data, court documents, etc., strictly distinguishing the levels of news sources, and conducting more than three rounds of cross-verification for each piece of information.

Secondly, these reports are not about celebrity gossip, but focus on significant social issues such as "systemic risk", "national security", "financial transparency", and "technology ethics", which have far-reaching public policy value.

Thirdly, in an era where the news ecosystem in the United States increasingly compromises on traffic, The Wall Street Journal is still able to challenge one of Silicon Valley's most powerful figures with large-scale investigations, marking a return to the values of traditional journalism.

After the release of this series of investigations, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Department of the Treasury jointly established a special investigation team targeting Musk; multiple lawsuits have entered the jury stage, including charges of financial fraud, insider trading, and export violations.

Tesla sales fell by 14% year-on-year, with frequent resignations at the executive level; SpaceX faces congressional inquiries regarding multiple military contracts; X platform sees a significant loss of advertising clients.

It is obvious that all the companies under Musk operate according to his personal preferences, lacking effective governance mechanisms and accountability systems. Whether in politics, business, or the media, Musk has been deified as a "savior" over the past decade, with many turning a blind eye to his actions. Until the Wall Street Journal's investigation broke this situation.

In an era where a social media owner can decide the flow of information, a government efficiency director can manipulate the value of virtual currencies, and a "private entrepreneur" can interfere in global military transactions, we must rethink: who will supervise these super capitals?

The awarding of The Wall Street Journal marks a victory for traditional media and serves as a reminder to the world that everyone, including business geniuses, must exist under the rule of law and public oversight.