Meet Elon Musk's latest foe: The California Coastal Commission

LOS ANGELES — What do tech billionaire Elon Musk, Hollywood producer David Geffen and U2 guitarist The Edge have in common? They've all tangled with the California Coastal Commission.

The sharp-elbowed agency charged with protecting California's shoreline from development became Musk's latest target when he sued them this week for rejecting his aerospace company's bid to increase rocket launches off the coast — while citing his support of former President Donald Trump.

Musk has irritated plenty of government officials before. But this is the first time an agency's members have called out his Trump support while weighing his business interests. The commission may be well equipped to take on Musk given its history of tangling with rich and powerful owners of spectacular waterfront properties.

Even still, going up against one of the wealthiest men on the planet — and the owner of a massive social-media megaphone — will put the California panel to the test.

Agency chair Caryl Hart has deep experience dealing with celebrities as the wife of Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. She shared her concerns about Musk during a hearing last week.

“We’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and he’s managed a company in a way ... that I find to be very disturbing," said Hart, who chairs the agency's board of 12 appointed commissioners. She joined the majority on Thursday in rejecting the Defense Department's application on behalf of Musk’s SpaceX to increase the number of satellite launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base from 36 to 50 per year.

Vandenberg occupies a large stretch of land along the Pacific Ocean about an hour north of Santa Barbara. The commissioners have expressed concerns about the impact of increased launches on area wildlife like the snowy plovers and people enjoying nearby Jalama Beach.

California's elected officials have long empowered the agency to protect the state's vaunted 840-mile coastline, in line with a 1972 law preserving public access to the shoreline. That mandate has put the agency’s 12 commissioners, appointed by the governor and legislative leaders, on the front lines of conflicts with the state’s wealthiest residents.

The agency famously battled with David Evans, better known as U2 guitarist The Edge, for more than a decade over plans to build a complex of five mansions perched in the Malibu hills 1,000 feet above the ocean.

Evans hired dozens of lawyers, lobbyists and environmental consultants in his bid to win over the commission, whose longtime executive director Peter Douglas said he’d “never seen a project as environmentally devastating as this one.” Evans eventually won approval to build a smaller and less prominent structure, only to see it tossed out after environmental groups sued.

The commission clashed with film and record mogul Geffen for more than two decades over access to a stretch of beach in front of his Malibu estate that had been blocked off. Geffen in 2007 settled with the agency and was allowed to keep a deck and wooden stairway the agency said intruded into public space, in exchange for opening the beach and paying $125,000 to build a path connecting the beach to a nearby walkway.

And the commission is still fighting Silicon Valley venture capitalist Vinod Khosla 15 years after he purchased 53 acres in San Mateo County and built a gate blocking the only road connecting to a local beach prized by surfers. The agency filed a lawsuit in 2020 that’s headed to trial in April, after a judge last month rejected Khosla’s bid to dismiss the case.

Several of the commission's members are celebrity-adjacent themselves. Dayna Bochco, who has served on the board since 2011, was married to Steven Bochco, the creator of TV shows like "Hill Street Blues," "LA Law," "NYPD Blue" and "Doogie Howser."

“Many have tried to bend the commission in order to favor the wealthy and the powerful and have failed," said Warner Chabot, executive director of the San Francisco Estuary Institute, an environmental research group that studies aquatic ecosystems.

But this is the first time the commission injected itself so prominently into the national political discourse.

"The Coastal Commission normally is not involved in any way in national politics or anything of that nature,” Hart said. “Our focus is on the coastal zone and protection of coastal resources.”

Musk's suit, filed in federal court in Los Angeles County, accuses the agency of violating the First Amendment's protection against government discrimination based on political speech.

“The Coastal Commission has one job — take care of the California coast,” Musk wrote on X on Tuesday. “It is illegal for them to make decisions based on what they (mostly wrongly) think are my politics.”

Hart said they hadn't.

"Many things are said in the course of meetings, whether it's a Coastal Commission meeting, whether it's a legislative meeting, whether it's a planning department,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “The basis for this decision is the commission's conclusion that SpaceX, as a private company engaged in private activities, needs to apply for a coastal development permit.”

Agency staff, which had recommended the board approve DOD's application, declined to comment.

But the episode shows the agency's willingness to butt heads with the military and Musk’s SpaceX — and buck other politicians. A bipartisan group of federal and state lawmakers urged the commission to approve the plan ahead of the vote.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who along with state legislative leaders appoints the agency's commissioners and 12 alternates, nodded to its clout on Monday.

"I'm not the dictator," he said in response to a question about whether he would order a different state agency to take action on an unrelated matter. "Just ask the Coastal Commission."

Other commissioners zeroed in on Musk’s political rhetoric, comments about transgender people and labor practices.

“Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet,” said Gretchen Newsom, an alternate commissioner who attended the meeting in place of an absent member. Musk named her in his suit, along with the 12 regular commissioners and the agency's executive director, Kate Huckelbridge.

SpaceX, which announced in July that it will relocate its Southern California headquarters to Texas, has quickly grown into the world’s most valuable and prolific aerospace company. Musk’s operation accounted for around 90 percent of U.S. rocket launches last year, and became the first company to catch a rocket booster used to launch a spacecraft over the weekend, a major breakthrough that cements its status.

“The future of aerospace belongs in California — bringing good-paying jobs and unlocking immense economic potential for the Golden State," Newsom spokesperson Brandon Richards said in a statement.

But the commission based its actual decision to reject the Air Force’s plan on concerns that it would classify all SpaceX launches as military activity, shielding the company from having to acquire its own permits even if military payloads aren’t being carried.

The commission’s vote to reject the launch increase is nonbinding, meaning the military can still move forward with the plan. But Air Force representatives at the meeting said they hope to reach a collaborative solution and said they wouldn’t oppose the agency seeking a separate agreement with SpaceX to mitigate environmental impacts related to the launches.

“Today’s vote hasn’t changed the [Department of the Air Force] or Vandenberg’s unwavering commitment to preserving the California coastline and the precious species that reside there,” said Ravi Chaudhary, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for energy, installations and environment. “The Space Force’s dedication to collaboration here is in many ways unprecedented — so is our commitment to ensuring dialogue continues.”