The Department of Justice moved to drop the Biden administration’s lawsuit against Elon Musk’s astronautics company SpaceX, which was accused of discriminating against asylum seekers and refugees in its hiring practices.
The previous administration targeted Musk’s companies with various legal and regulatory punishments. SpaceX’s discrimination case could be one of the first to be dropped under President Donald Trump.
Federal prosecutors filed an unopposed motion Thursday evening, asking a Texas federal court to lift a stay on the case so that it can be formally dismissed. The DOJ intends to dismiss the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning the charges cannot be revived in the future.
The filing did not specify exactly why or when the case would be dropped, but the pending dismissal comes as the tech billionaire and the president continue their very public friendship and professional collaboration.
The Biden-era DOJ filed the lawsuit in August 2023, alleging SpaceX violated federal law by requiring job applicants to be U.S. citizens or permanent residents even though many of the positions were not legally restricted in that way. SpaceX therefore “actively discouraged asylees and refugees” based on their citizenship status in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the suit claims. The rocket company, which receives government contracts, denied the allegations.
A judge temporarily blocked the case from proceeding in November 2023 while the court heard arguments from both legal parties.
Musk said SpaceX could not hire an immigrant who is not a U.S. citizen or permanent resident because of export control laws. The DOJ at the time rejected that argument.
“SpaceX was told repeatedly that hiring anyone who was not a permanent resident of the United States would violate international arms trafficking law, which would be a criminal offense,” Musk wrote on his social media platform in 2023. “This is yet another case of weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes.”
The court filing comes as Musk works closely with the Trump administration leading the Department of Government Efficiency, a newly formed body that is working to cut waste, fraud, and abuse from several executive agencies. Among DOGE’s targets are the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Federal Aviation Administration, the same agency that fined SpaceX for safety violations.
Musk called the discrimination case an “insane” example of “lawfare” against SpaceX.
“The Biden administration launched a massive multi-year lawsuit against SpaceX for not hiring asylum seekers, despite the fact that SpaceX is legally BARRED from hiring non-permanent residents under [the International Traffic in Arms Regulations], because rockets are an advanced weapons technology,” the SpaceX founder posted in celebration of the Trump DOJ’s action Friday morning.
“In other words, it was both illegal to hire asylum seekers and illegal not to hire asylum seekers!!”