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• Elon Musk said Google had a “standing interest in buying Tesla” in testimony in the securities fraud trial.
• The Tesla CEO said this helped encourage him to try to secure funds to take the EV maker private.
• According to a 2015 book, Musk and former Google CEO Larry Page had an $11 billion deal in place for Tesla.  

Tesla CEO Elon Musk told a court Tuesday that Google had a “standing interest” in buying the electric-vehicle maker, which encouraged him to try taking the company private with Saudi funds.

The billionaire pointed to the interest from Google’s parent Alphabet laid down in an earlier deposition,  Marketwatch reported, as he defended his 2018 “funding secured” tweet in an ongoing civil trial.

Musk told his lawyer Alex Spiro in a cross-examination that this factored into his decision to try and take Tesla private.

The San Francisco trial is the result of a class-action shareholder lawsuit that alleges Musk committed securities fraud with the tweet. The investors have accused Musk of illegally manipulating Tesla’s stock price by saying he had funding in place to take the carmaker private at $420 a share.

Musk said that in planning to take Tesla private, he entered into negotiations with the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), which he said “unequivocally” supported his plan, per Bloomberg.

But he described the sovereign wealth fund’s governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan as “backpedaling” on verbal assurances of commitment made to Musk in Tesla’s factory. The CEO said Al-Rumayyan was “ass covering” in later texts.

Saudis are the second largest investors in Musk’s social platform company Twitter, which he acquired for $44 billion in October. 

Musk also said he would have sold SpaceX stock to take Tesla private.

According to a 2015 book on Musk, the Tesla CEO had an $11 billion deal in place to sell the company to Google in 2013, but it fell through when Musk and former Google CEO Larry Page started arguing over specifics of the deal, during which time Google began to turn a profit. 

He has since had a more distinct cooling in relations with Google. Co-founder Sergey Brin was set to cash in his shares in the automaker — which he bought before it went public in 2010 — last year amid a report in the Wall Street Journal that Musk had an affair with his wife. 

Musk’s trial rests on his assertion that he did not mislead investors when he tweeted that he had secured finances to take Tesla private at $420, because he did indeed have funding for the deal. Shares in Tesla have jumped more than 14% in the last five days as the trial continues.

The Biden think tank at the University of Pennsylvania where the president stashed classified documents didn’t just have lax security—it also hosted events in partnership with organizations that promoted closer engagement with China, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

The Penn Biden Center hosted a two-day “bootcamp” for congressional staffers in June that encouraged closer ties with China on issues like green energy and academia, according to a source. One of the organizing groups has an advisory board member who served as spokesman for the controversial Chinese tech giant Baidu. The event was held as anonymous donors from China have poured millions into the University of Pennsylvania.

There were no posted security officials at the Penn Biden Center during the June conference—just regular Penn staffers—and attendees were able to walk around the center unmonitored and make use of unused rooms for phone calls and other private work during the conference.

The news raises questions about security at the Penn Biden Center following revelations that classified documents from Joe Biden’s vice presidency had been improperly stored at the think tank in Washington, D.C., and at his home in Wilmington, Del. Biden has pushed back against notions that he mishandled information, describing the Penn Biden Center as a place where his lawyers “set up an office for me—a secure office in the Capitol, when I—the four years after being vice president, I was a professor at Penn.”

The events also raise questions about the extent of the Biden team’s involvement in the University of Pennsylvania’s opaquely funded China initiatives, which ramped up in recent years as millions of dollars in Chinese donations poured into the university. The university has denied that the contributions have any connection to the Penn Biden Center, and a spokesman told the Free Beacon that no foreign donations were specifically earmarked for the think tank.

Rebeccah Heinrichs, a national security expert and senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said the news that outside groups hosted events at the Penn Biden Center while classified documents were stored at the office was ‘incredibly alarming.”

‘The fact that [the documents] were not secured, [were] open and uncared for, and also that you had this other activity going on inside this facility, with individuals that may not have the best interests of the American people at heart, is shocking,” said Heinrichs.

‘I would like to know more about … who was going in and out of these specific workshops, these discussions, who has been through this facility,” Heinrichs added. ‘The American people deserve a full accounting of who may have had easy access to these documents.”

The University of Pennsylvania did not respond to a request for comment on the event.

The two-day “congressional bootcamp,” which was held at the Penn Biden Center in D.C., was co-organized by the university’s Center for the Study of Contemporary China, the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, according to the university’s website.

A dozen fellows from the Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations spoke at the congressional bootcamp, according to the website. The project is financed by Penn’s China Research and Engagement Fund, which is “designed to stimulate and support activity in China” and engagement with the Penn Wharton China Center but does not disclose its individual donors.

The Penn Project on the Future of U.S.-China Relations’s advisory board includes Kaiser Kuo, the former spokesman for Chinese tech giant Baidu, who is now editor at large of a news outlet called SupChina. Members of Congress have been probing SupChina—which recently changed its name to the China Project—for potentially acting as an unregistered agent for China, Semafor reported in October.

The allegations are based on a sworn statement a former SupChina reporter, Shannon Van Sant, filed with the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission that month.

In the complaint, Van Sant claimed Kuo said during an editorial meeting that the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong were organized by the U.S. government.

“He said, ‘the United States government is orchestrating the protests in Hong Kong through funding and training provided by the National Endowment for Democracy,”’ she wrote. “Kuo said the U.S. government was responsible for the unrest in Hong Kong, forcing China to impose national security legislation to protect the city.”

Van Sant said the outlet’s leadership pushed writers to adopt a pro-Beijing slant and consulted with Chinese Communist Party entities on story ideas. One of SupChina’s funders, financial consultant Clarence Kwan, was also a board member of the China Overseas Exchange Association, a group that works under the Chinese government’s United Front foreign influence department, according to Semafor.

Kuo was not listed as a speaker at the congressional bootcamp, according to a conference schedule obtained by the Free Beacon. Speakers included Penn professor Jacques deLisle, China studies chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Jude Blanchette, and former Obama administration China adviser Ryan Hass.

Panel topics included “China’s Climate and Energy Policies,” “Beijing’s Evolving Strategy on Taiwan,” and “Public Opinion in China: What Do We Know?” The two-day conference closed with a reception at Bistro Bis, a restaurant at the nearby Kimpton George Hotel.

The post Biden Think Tank That Housed Classified Docs Also Hosted Event That Pushed Greater Engagement With China appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Every year, the State Department gives $100 million in grants to fund public diplomacy programs that “enhance national security.” Under President Biden, some of that money has gone to an organization with extensive ties to a Chinese Communist Party front group.

According to federal spending records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the State Department in September gave $180,076 to the George H.W. Bush China Foundation, which has partnered with the China-U.S. Exchange Foundation, an organization that promotes the interests of Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party. The China-U.S. Exchange Foundation donated $5 million to the Bush China Foundation, a significant portion of its annual revenue, in 2019, Axios reported.

The Bush China Foundation’s ties to the China-United States Exchange Foundation make it an odd choice for the government grants, which are meant to advance “U.S. foreign policy goals.” The China-United States Exchange Foundation is a top organization in the Chinese government’s United Front system, which the Chinese Communist Party uses to influence foreigners in favor of Beijing’s policies.

American officials have long expressed concern that the China-United States Exchange Foundation is engaged in covert influence operations for Beijing. CIA director William Burns has said he cut ties with the organization because of its connections to Beijing after he took over at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a prominent foreign policy think tank.

The Bush China Foundation has maintained its ties to the China-United States Exchange Foundation amid scrutiny of the relationship. Neil Bush, the Bush China Foundation’s founder and chair, praised the Chinese think tank’s founder, Tung Chee-hwa, at an event in January 2021. Tung is vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a political advisory group for the Chinese Communist Party.

At a Bush China Foundation event with China’s ambassador in July 2021, Bush lamented an “onslaught of anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S. over recent years that has led to growing suspicion of China and her motives.”

Bush has been an outspoken defender of Beijing’s controversial national security policies. In a 2019 interview with Chinese state television, he criticized pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong upset over a Beijing-backed national security law used to arrest dissenters and shut down news organizations critical of the Chinese Communist Party.

“My first question would be, what freedoms are you seeking that you don’t already enjoy? What setbacks have you incurred,” said Bush, who also suggested that “outside forces” were behind the protests.

The Bush China Foundation also received another State Department grant to help develop a “digital mental health network” for American and Chinese “mental health stakeholders.”

At an event with the China-United States Exchange Foundation in 2019, Bush said he would “advise my American friends not to meddle in the internal affairs of China.”

Bush has extensive business ties to China. He came under fire during his brother’s presidency for signing business deals in China. In 2002, he received $400,000 from a Chinese semiconductor manufacturer. In 2009, he attempted to secure a deal for China’s oil company, Sinopec, to purchase oil from Ghana.

While leading the Bush China Foundation, Bush has organized an annual forum in China, the International Symposium for the Peaceful Use of Space Technology, with officials from the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), a state-owned space and defense contractor that the United States has blacklisted because of its links to China’s military.

An official from the organization attended the symposium in November, where Bush served as honorary chairman. Bush leads the symposium with his partner at the Chinese property developer CIIC. In 2019, Bush and his partner, Wang Tianyi, signed a “strategic cooperation framework agreement” with CASC that called for the “exchange of international space innovation technology.”

The State Department declined to comment on the grants. The Bush China Foundation did not return a request for comment.

The post Biden Admin Gives National Security Grants to Think Tank Backed by CCP Front Group appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

KYIV, Ukraine — The deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office quit Tuesday, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pledged to launch a staff shake-up amid high-level corruption allegations during the war with Russia.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko asked to be relieved of his duties, according to an online copy of a decree signed by Zelenskyy and Tymoshenko’s own social media posts.

Neither gave a reason for the resignation.

Deputy Defense Minister Viacheslav Shapovalov also resigned, local media reported, alleging his departure was linked to a scandal involving the purchase of food for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Deputy Prosecutor General Oleksiy Symonenko also quit.

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Tymoshenko joined the presidential office in 2019, after working on Zelenskyy’s media and creative content strategy during his presidential campaign.

Zelenskyy had promised personnel changes in the government, regional administrations and security forces following corruption allegations that emerged after Russia’s invasion last February.

Tymoshenko last year was under investigation relating to his personal use of luxury cars. He was also among officials linked last September to the embezzlement of humanitarian aid worth more than $7 million earmarked for the southern Zaporizhzhia region.

He has denied all the allegations.

Zelenskyy vowed to drive out corrupt officials in comments on Sunday, when a deputy minister was dismissed for being part of a network embezzling budget funds. Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry later identified the dismissed official as Vasyl Lozynsky, a deputy minister there.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said that Ukraine’s focus on the war would not stop his government from tackling corruption.

Zelenskyy, who came to power in 2019 on an anti-establishment and anti-corruption platform, pointed to suspicions in the areas of energy and military procurement.

He said he intended the deputy minister’s dismissal to send “a signal to all those whose actions or behavior violate the principle of justice.”

“I want to be clear: There will be no return to what used to be in the past,” Zelenskyy said.

Oleksandr Kubrakov, the infrastructure minister, said Lozynsky was relieved of his duties after Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency detained him while he was receiving a $400,000 bribe for helping to fix contracts related to restoring infrastructure facilities battered by Russian missile strikes.

A statement by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine described Lozynsky as part of “an organized criminal group involved in the embezzlement of budget funds.”

It said its detectives were working to identify the group’s other members.