Let's say someone is in charge of regulating one of Musk's companies. They know that layoffs are imminent. They know that Musk's people are telling the agencies who to lay off. They know that Musk is vindictive, and that he has access to all the agency personnel information. They know that the structures that are supposed to protect the civil service from partisan interference have been co-opted (see for instance, Trump firing the head of the agency that protects whistleblowers (OSC) and the head of the agency that federal workers can appeal to if they are fired for political reasons (MSPB), and that the administration is perfectly happy to lie and break federal law when it fires people (for instance, when it fired thousands of probationary employees for "performance" even though they had good performance evaluations).

Under those circumstances, is it reasonable to expect that a regulator is going to make any decision that's detrimental to one of Musk's companies, no matter how justified it might be?