Elon Musk Asked Tesla Law Firm to Fire Ex-Gov’t Official He Didn’t Like

Elon Musk was angry that Tesla’s law firm hired a former Securities and Exchange Commission lawyer who once interviewed Musk for a fraud investigation into a tweet claiming he could take Tesla. So, according to The Wall Street Journal, he told the law firm: fire him or lose Tesla as a client. Cooley, the law firm hired by Tesla for an array of litigation, declined Musk’s request, and Musk has since opted to boot Cooley from regulatory cases. It’s not the only time Musk has gone after government officials that he feels target him or his companies. He previously slammed Mary “Missy” Cummings, a Duke engineering professor who published a study critical of Tesla’s Autopilot program, when she was appointed as an advisor to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The agency prohibited Cummings from speaking on Tesla issues, according to the WSJ.