The Democratic Party, which took control of both the House and Senate in the U.S. midterm elections, is preparing a large-scale congressional investigation targeting major conglomerates that have had close ties with President Donald Trump.
Companies led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, including Apple and Meta, are being mentioned first as targets of the investigation.
The Washington Post (WP), citing sources, reported on the 6th (local time) that the Democratic Party plans to intensively look into companies' business activities and relationships with the Trump administration during the two years of the second Trump administration.
The Democratic Party's congressional investigation is expected to focus on how companies built relationships with President Trump and how they benefited from them.
Specifically, the House of Representatives is preparing to investigate allegations that President Trump used Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot 'Grok' in the process of planning a military operation to arrest former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
According to a previous report in Time magazine, President Trump, along with Musk, who visited the White House in December of last year, asked Grok about the reaction of local residents upon the arrest of President Maduro, and Grok is said to have responded to the effect that 'since Maduro is an unpopular dictator, the residents will celebrate his downfall.'
The Democratic Party plans to investigate Apple into why it deleted an application that shared the locations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from the App Store at the request of the Trump administration.
Regarding Meta, it is expected to look into the issue of requiring local governments to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to prevent business-related information, such as power and water usage and tax reductions, from being disclosed during the construction of a large-scale data center.
During Trump's second administration, Silicon Valley billionaires and corporate executives have built a close relationship with the administration, attending White House events and donating to President Trump's White House banquet hall construction project.
The WP reported that some of the companies invested by President Trump's family and Wall Street executives are receiving billions of dollars in government funding.
The Democratic Party plans to intensively investigate transactions between these companies and the administration.
Rep. Robert Garcia (Democrat, California), who is likely to be the next chairman of the House Oversight Committee, warned in a statement on the night of the 3rd when the Democratic Party's victory was certain, "Hire a lawyer."
Democratic Senator Ed Markey (Massachusetts) predicted a large-scale subpoena investigation targeting companies, saying in an article posted on
As the Democratic Party announces expansion of congressional investigations, law firms in Washington DC are also busy working to support companies' responses.
Major law firms are holding emergency online meetings for corporate executives to explain how to prepare for a congressional investigation, and some are competing to serve as Musk's legal representative.
It is said that Silicon Valley startups are being advised to finalize funding by the end of the year in preparation for the possibility that corporate executives may be summoned to congressional hearings or that the Department of Defense's spending plan may be reduced.
Robert Kellner, an attorney at the law firm Covington & Burling, said there was no doubt there would be a major Democratic investigation. “We’ve been telling our clients all year that winter is coming. Now it’s here,” he said.
