Few people want their neighbors to become public. This includes Elon Musk.
In March, Musk's team put pressure on officials in the city of high level of West Lake Hills, Texas, to keep silent about the details of one of its buildings and safety operations, according to the E -mails to the employees of the city obtained from the New York Times through the requests of public registers.
In those and -mail, employees of the technological billionaire asked West Lake Hills officials to make a public meeting private in April – where neighbors could talk about his 6 million dollar house. They indicated the work of Mr. Musk with the Trump administration as a reason why his registers of ownership and communications with the city were exempt from state and federal laws on public registers, the and -mail showed.
The owner of the house should be exempt because it is a “federal public official”, one of the employees of Mr. Musk wrote in an e -mail sent to the city on March 3, adding: “We can provide the documentation of federal authorization if necessary”.
Mr. Musk, 53, was trying to maintain a disagreement with his neighbors for the construction of a 16 -foot fence and a metal gate with a camera in the home under the compresses. He had made changes to property without obtaining adequate permits, violating six ordinances of the city and was trying to retroactively tackle the problem.
His push to privacy has not been successful. West Lake Hills City's lawyer has pronounced a closed meeting, shows and -mail. Last month, during a meeting of the Zonization and Planning Commission, Musk lost his appeal to maintain the fence and the gate on his property. The question goes next to a meeting of the city council, which had been scheduled for May 14, but was reprogrammed for June 11 after “the applicant requested a postponement,” said Trey Fletcher, the city administrator, Tuesday.
Fletcher refused to comment on the city's documents. Mr. Musk and his team did not respond to requests for comment.
The house of six bedrooms of 6,900 square feet in West Lake Hills is one of the three houses that Musk has purchased in recent years for his children and mothers. The home, on a blind residential alley of four houses, is the place where Mr. Musk remains when he is in Austin and has become a hub for his growing security operations. He purchased the property in 2022 through a limited liability company.
After being erected the 16 -foot fence and the separate gate, the neighbors complained about the structures and traffic on the FRONDOSA road. This brought West Lake Hills officials to investigate.
In March, Mr. Musk's staff had worried that any documentation they send to the city would become public, they show and -mail. Tisha Ritta, an official of the permit that works for the limited liability company of Mr. Musk, he sent an EE -mail to the city to request that an expected audition to discuss problems in the property was maintained private.
Inna Kaplun, who was identified as a lawyer who works for “the owner”, has also sent an EE -mail to the city, claiming that the owner should be free from a public audience due to numerous security staff in the property, including federal marshals. Citing a statute of Texas, said the lawyer, government bodies must not conduct an open meeting to deliberate “security staff or devices”.
Musk staff members and the city officials held at least one meeting in March to discuss ownership, show and -mail. In mid-March, the city prosecutor for West Lake Hills pronounced Mr. Musk's request for a private audition, citing the Texas Open Meetings Act, according to an e-mail.
At the meeting of the commission of zoning and public planning last month, the city employees recommended Musk to maintain the fence and the gate he had built without permits, even if with small changes requested. Some of the six members of the Commission have questioned the staff of the city on the proposal, according to a meeting of the meeting.
In the end, the Commission voted to recommend that the city council is Musk the exceptions for its projects.