Few people would have been surprised that the US Securities and Exchange Commission is backing away from its previously-passed (but now never to be implemented) climate disclosure rules…

…but recent events must raise questions about what else lies ahead for the organization. Recent reporting by The Economic Times sets out some initial Trump-era developments:

• The agency’s new leadership has made changes in recent days that start to alter its priorities and how it functions, ranging from a move that centralized power in the hands of Republican-led commissioners to shrinking crypto enforcement, according to more than half a dozen current and former SEC officials.
• Within the SEC, two of the former officials said, these steps are seen as a precursor to further restructuring, such as disbanding other specialist units and moving staff into the so-called “core” enforcement team to unwind previous initiatives. Some experts and former SEC officials told Reuters the changes are too quick and ominous…
• The SEC was caught off guard by the January 28 email from the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), titled the “Fork in the Road”. The email, which has sent shockwaves across the federal bureaucracy, included the end of remote work for most employees and offered those who quit by February 6 to receive pay through September.

Beyond that, one wonders whether the SEC will be more specifically targeted as fodder for Elon Musk’s destructively reckless “wood chipper.” In its favour, Trump cares more about capital market stability (at least as embodied by high stock prices) than he does about most else. On the other hand, one should note Musk’s frequent conflicts with the agency over the years, and the copious resulting basis (if you see the world as he does, although I truly hope for the sake of your sanity that you don’t) for finding it to be over-regulatory, un-American, or outright corrupt. Most recently:

• On January 14, 2025, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against Elon Musk for failing to timely file a beneficial ownership report under Section 13 of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934 disclosing his acquisition of more than 5% of the outstanding shares of common stock of Twitter, Inc.
• …The Complaint alleges that because of Mr. Musk’s failure to publicly disclose his beneficial ownership of Twitter’s outstanding common stock by March 24, 2022, Mr. Musk paid at least $150 million less for the shares of Twitter common stock he purchased between March 25 and April 1, 2022 than he would have had he made a timely beneficial ownership report filing. The Complaint further alleges that Mr. Musk’s failure to make a timely filing resulted in substantial economic harm to investors selling Twitter common stock during that period because they sold their shares at artificially low prices, as Mr. Musk’s ownership had not yet been priced into the market.

As Politico reported:

• Musk is firing back at the agency. He said the SEC is a “Totally broken organization” on X after the lawsuit was filed. And his lawyer, Alex Spiro, called the suit a “single-count ticky tak complaint” that carries a “nominal penalty.”
• “They spend their time on shit like this when there are so many actual crimes that go unpunished,” Musk posted.
• Musk has regularly clashed with the SEC over the last decade. The feud began in the first Trump administration when the agency sued the Tesla CEO over his allegedly misleading tweets about taking the electric-car maker private. Shortly after settling the charges, Musk took to “60 Minutes” to express his lack of respect for the SEC.
• Years later, he is still criticizing the agency. In December, Musk called the SEC “just another weaponized institution doing political dirty work.”

Against that backdrop, it’s unlikely the recent action will lead to more than the most nominal of penalties, if it proceeds at all.

By the way, on a related matter, one wonders if Trump will recall his previous short-lived interest in an aspect of financial reporting, as set out in a 2018 tweet:

• In speaking with some of the world’s top business leaders I asked what it is that would make business (jobs) even better in the U.S. “Stop quarterly reporting & go to a six month system,” said one. That would allow greater flexibility & save money. I have asked the SEC to study!

Here’s what that prompted me to write back then:

• Like the parable of the blind men and the elephant, Trump’s wretchedness and inadequacy are sufficiently multi-faceted that one person’s loathing for him might take an entirely different form from another’s. For myself, I dwell less on his uncouthness and murky connections  than on how his leadership lacks even a basic awareness of the escalating complexity of our collective challenges (demographic, fiscal, environmental, etc. etc.); or of how they demand (our future pleads for) an energetic, open-minded marshaling of all the capacities of science, of youth, of social innovation, of diplomatic cooperation, of creativity. Instead, Trump provides nothing but backward-looking, wantonly ignorant, self-absorbed irrationality. In combination with his chronic bigotry, corruption, paranoia, capriciousness and all the rest of it, it embodies power at its most ugly and depraved.

Well, it’s nice I suppose when one’s writing passes the test of time…

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author.