Treasury staff at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) has been called by Sen. Chris Murphy to determine whether Musk’s purchase of the social media platform could trigger a national security review due to the stake Saudi Arabia owns.
Asked today if the Biden administration shares the same view, NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said that the decision is up to CFIUS.
“If that to occur it would be their, CFIUS decision,” said Kirby. “We would not have a position here on that,” noted Kirby. “We are going to let CFIUS talk about that.”
In 2015, it has been widely reported that Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and his investment firm owned over 5% of Twitter, more than what Twitter’s then CEO Jack Dorsey owned.
Why the national security review would be needed now under Elon Musk and was not a problem in 2015 is yet to be determined.
