Few people want beef with their neighbors to become public. That includes Elon Musk.
In March, Mr. Musk’s team pressed the officials in the exclusive city of West Lake Hills, Texas, to keep the details of one of their mansions and safety operations silent, Choose emails to the emails of the city of the city observed by the requests of the New York Times.
In those emails, the employees of the Technology billionaire asked West Lake Hills officials to privately make a public meeting in April, where the neighbors could talk about their home of $ 6 million. They pointed out Mr. Musk’s work with the Trump administration as a reason why their property registers and communications with the city are exempt from the laws of state and federal public records, according to the emails.
The owner must be exempt because he is a “federal public official”, one of Mr. Musk’s employees wrote in an email to the city on March 3, adding: “We can provide federal authorization documentation if necessary.”
Mr. Musk, 53, was trying to maintain a disagreement with his neighbors about the construction of a 3 -foot fence and a metal door with a camera in the mansion on Wraps. He had made the changes in the property without obtaining the clean permits, violating six ordinances of the city, and was trying to retroactively address the problem.
His privacy impulse was not successful. West Lake Hills city lawyer ruled against a closed meeting, show the emails. Last month, at a meeting of the Zoning and Planning Commission, Musk resolves its appeal to keep the fence and door of its property. The matter goes next to a meeting of the City Council, which had been scheduled for May 14, but was reviewed for June 11 after “the applicant requested a postponement,” Tuesday Fletcher, a city administrator, said Tuesday.
Mr. Fletcher declined to comment on the city’s documents. Mr. Musk and his team did not respond to comments requests.
The 6,900 square feet house and six bedrooms in West Lake Hills is one of the three mansions that Mr. Musk bought in recent years for their children and mothers. The mansion, in a residential or four -homes without residency, is where Mr. Musk stays when it is in Austin and has become a center for its growing security operations. He bought the property in 2022 through a limited liability company.
After erecting the nearly 16 feet and the separate door, the neighbors complained about the structures and traffic on Frondosa Street. That led West Lake Hills officials to investigate.
For March, Mr. Musk’s staff worried that any documentation sent to the city became public, according to the emails. Tisha Ritta, a permits officer working for the limited liability company of Mr. Musk, sent an email to the city to request that a scheduled audience for property discussion problems remains private.
Inna Kaplun, who was identified as a lawyer who works for “the owner”, also sent an email to the city, arguing that the owner must be exempt from a public hearing due to numerous members of the property security personnel, including federal marsals. Citing a Statute of Texas, the lawyer said that government entities did not have to hold an open meeting to deliberate “personal or security devices.”
Mr. Musk’s staff and city officials held at least one meeting in March to discuss the property, according to the emails. In mid -March, West Lake Hills city lawyer ruled against Mr. Musk’s request for a private audience, citing Texas’s open meetings law, according to an email.
At the meeting of the Public Zoning and Planning Commission last month, the city employees were allowed to allow Mr. Musk to keep the fence and the door that he had built without permits, although with small requests for changes. Some of the six members of the Commission questioned the city staff about the proposal, according to a recording of the meeting.
The commission finally voted to resume that the City Council denies Mr. Musk exceptions for its projects.
