Trump White House just keeps dropping regulatory lawsuits — the latest break goes to Kraken

The Department of Justice plans to drop a lawsuit against SpaceX that it filed in 2023. In the lawsuit, officials accused Elon Musk's rocket company of discriminating against refugees and asylees in its hiring process.

SpaceX promptly sued to block the lawsuit, which was paused as both sides readied their cases. Yet on February 20, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to lift the original stay so that it could dismiss the case entirely.

In the initial suit, the department alleged that SpaceX discouraged refugees and asylees from applying to work at the company by incorrectly stating in job listings that it could only hire US citizens. The case referenced a tweet Musk sent in 2020 in which he said that "US law requires at least a green card" to be hired at SpaceX, as the rockets are "advanced weapons and technology."

Musk has become a centerpiece of Trump's second term and is closely linked to the White House DOGE Office, which has embarked on a mission to reshape the federal government and dismantle agencies. While the White House itself said in a court filing that Musk doesn't have any "actual or formal authority," he appears extremely close to Trump. Many Democrats and watchdog groups have questioned whether there are conflicts of interest given Musk's power in the private and, now, public sector.

On February 21, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said the Securities and Exchange Commission was ending a nearly two-year lawsuit against the company. The decision likely foreshadows an era of lighter crypto regulation during a second Trump term.

The SEC had accused Coinbase, the biggest US crypto exchange, of being an unregistered securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.

The company's CEO, Brian Armstrong, celebrated the decision, saying it was a "huge day" for Coinbase and calling the case "bogus."

Other industry leaders also welcomed the news, as BI previously reported. Though Trump once doubted crypto's merits, he's since become closely linked to the industry, releasing his own memecoin and creating a group to pursue regulatory changes.

Under former President Joe Biden, the SEC and its chair, Gary Gensler, drew the ire of much of the crypto community.

A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment on this story. In a statement on Thursday, the SEC announced that the commission filed a joint stipulation to dismiss the ongoing civil enforcement action.

"For the last several years, the Commission's views on crypto have been largely expressed through enforcement actions without engaging the general public," said SEC acting chairman Mark T. Uyeda. "It's time for the Commission to rectify its approach and develop crypto policy in a more transparent manner. The Crypto Task Force is designed to do just that."

OpenSea, which which lets users sell non-fungible tokens (NFTs), said the SEC was closing its investigation into the company on February 21. The investigation began in August 2024, when the SEC issued a Wells notice, which is typically sent before launching a formal suit, and alleged the company might have been functioning as an unregistered securities marketplace.

OpenSea's founder and CEO cheered the decision in a post on X, writing, "This is a win for everyone who is creating and building in our space. Trying to classify NFTs as securities would have been a step backward — one that misinterprets the law and slows innovation."

On February 24, the financial services platform Robinhood said in a blog post that the SEC would drop its investigation into the company's crypto unit, after sending a Wells Notice in May of 2024. The SEC told Robinhood in a letter that the investigation was over and it didn't plan to pursue a lawsuit, the post said.

"We appreciate the formal closing of this investigation, and we are happy to see a return to the rule of law and commitment to fairness at the SEC," Robinhood's chief legal, compliance and corporate affairs officer said in the post.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ended four Biden-era enforcement lawsuits on February 27. The cases were brought against Capitol One; Vanderbilt Mortgage & Finance, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway; Rocket Homes Real Estate, a unit of Rocket Cos.; and the loan servicer Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency.

The government watchdog issued a notice of voluntary dismissals for all four of the cases in legal filings. Under the Biden administration, the CFPB had accused Capitol One of "cheating" millions of customers out of $2 billion worth of interest payments. It alleged that Vanderbilt made mortgage loans to customers it knew couldn't pay them back, that Rocket gave unlawful kickbacks to real estate agents, and that Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency incorrectly took in loans.

Spokespeople for Capitol One and Rocket Homes celebrated the dismissals, with the latter saying the company is "proud to put this matter behind us."

The dismissals come amid seismic shifts at the CFPB. Since Trump took office for a second time, the agency has shut down its Washington headquarters, fired hundreds of employees, and told those who are still employed to stop working.

The cryptocurrency exchange Kraken said in a blog post on March 3 that the SEC had "agreed in principle" to drop a 2023 lawsuit that alleged the company was operating as an unregistered securities exchange, broker, dealer, and clearing agency. The SEC dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning the agency can't reopen the suit, the post says.

Kraken described the SEC's choice to drop this and similar cases as "a turning point for the future of crypto in the U.S." in the blog and said it will herald in a new "regulatory regime."

"We appreciate the new leadership both at the White House and the Commission that led to this change," the post read.

There has been no public sign of Trump's DOJ backing down after inheriting seven ongoing and massive federal antitrust-enforcement lawsuits — against Ticketmaster, Google, Meta, Amazon, and Apple.

The Ticketmaster case seeks to break up parent company Live Nation's concert venue, promotion, and ticketing arms, and has 27 states signed on as co-plaintiffs who could carry it forward should the Trump DOJ pull out. The case remains scheduled for trial in the spring of 2026.

The two Google cases are in their final stages.

The first, from 2020, was actually filed at the end of the first Trump administration and led a DC judge to find in August that Google maintained a search-engine monopoly. It will be another year of litigation before the search-engine case goes to trial on what the remedy should be, with the Biden DOJ having demanded that Google sell its Chrome browser.

In the second Google case, filed in 2023, the DOJ alleged at a September bench trial that the company has an adtech monopoly. A decision by a federal trial in Alexandria, Virginia is pending.

Two Amazon cases — one challenging the company's dealings with vendors, the other challenging its Prime subscriptions model — are working their way through the federal courts in Seattle, as is a government antitrust lawsuit against Apple.

The Federal Trade Commission's 2020 antitrust lawsuit against Meta is set for a bench trial before a DC judge on April 14. The FTC's new chairman, Andrew Ferguson, has vowed to go after Big Tech and its
"vendetta against competition," though it's expected he'll seek policy and contract changes rather than major breakups of any of these big companies.

Spokespeople for the FTC and DOJ did not immediately respond to requests for comment on this story.