Along with heading the FBI, Patel might also become the acting chief of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, reported news agency Reuters citing unnamed sources.

During his first remarks after being sworn in as the FBI Director, Patel said, “Anyone who thinks the American Dream is dead, look right here. You’re talking to a first-generation Indian kid who is about to lead the law enforcement community in the greatest nation on God’s Earth.”

With the country’s largest law enforcement agency and the body that controls gun laws in the US under his wing, Patel is undoubtedly one of the most powerful people in the US. With this, and his loyalty for President Trump, he finds himself in the company of billionaire and world’s richest person Elon Musk.

While the two can be seen cheering for their President together, there was a time when Patel wasn’t a big Musk fan and even called the entrepreneur out for his hunger for monopoly.

Kash Patel on Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover

Amid Elon Musk’s hostile takeover of Twitter, which he later rebranded to X, in 2022, Kash Patel expressed concerns over what the billionaire is going to do with so much data.

In one of the episodes of his podcast named Kash’s Corner, dating back to October 2022, Patel speculated over why Musk would buy Twitter on his original bid and later came to the conclusion that it is about “money”. Patel said he realised that Musk wants to continue building what he called “Elon Behemoth”.

“Even if you’re worth $250 billion and you buy a $50 billion company… that’s a fifth of your wealth—especially if you need to use liquid capital, which you do in these deals to buy a large portion of it. So I think he realized that his payment penalty, if he withdrew, was going to be huge, a billion dollars in cash. And I think he realized that he wants to continue building the Elon behemoth, and he put out a statement. It basically says all roads lead to the one app for everything, the X app. Cute from SpaceX founder—I’m not really sure what he means by the one app for everything,” Patel said during the podcast.

Patel also touched upon how a big portion of Musk’s wealth is fundamentally built upon taxpayer’s money, while also raising concerns that Musk is heading towards monopoly.

Elon Musk has some of the world’s largest companies to his credit- Starlink, Tesla, and SpaceX, adding Twitter (X) to his portfolio as well eventually. Patel says in the podcast he thinks one of the largest portions of Musk’s wealth comes from US Department of Defence’s contracts, which is taxpayer’s money. However, Trump’s Tesla stock shares constitute his largest net worth share, says a Dropsite news report.

“So, what scares me is, like, you wanna talk about a monopoly? It is the ultimate monopoly. Is he going to execute the businesses and allow others to compete? On free speech platforms, that is? Is he just going to buy everything up, and then become one ginormous trust—for lack of a better word, a monopoly—which is supposedly illegal under antitrust laws?” Patel goes on to say before raising questions over the usage of all the data.

Patel expresses concerns over whether Musk plans to share the data with US rival China for use against “American interests”.

“What’s he going to do with all the data? That’s my concern,” Patel said. “The data collection — he’s got a global wifi satellite system, in space, for the world: Starlink. He has Tesla, he has, as I said, the SpaceX program, and now he’ll have Twitter. What do you do with everyone’s personal information? Do you allow CCP to have backdoors? Like other companies, like TikTok, has done in the past, and sell Americans’ data? Or provide Americans data directly to the CCP for future use against American and American interests? Those are questions that people should be asking, I think, rather than fixating on the ups or downs of Elon buying Twitter,” Patel says.

New flashpoint

Elon Musk, who also finds a place alongside Trump in the White House as the head of DOGE, put out a warning to all federal employees, asking them to either submit a detailed work report or lose their jobs. However, within hours, Patel asked the FBI employees to “pause any responses”.

In a message sent to the bureau employees, Patel said, “FBI personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information. The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures. When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses. For now, please pause any responses.”

Several unions of the Fed employees have also shown resistance to Elon Musk’s move.