After completing his purchase of Twitter on Thursday, serial entrepreneur Elon Musk — the wealthiest person in the world — is now the leader of two publicly-traded companies: Tesla and soon-to-be-private Twitter.
The two companies, which are cumulatively worth billions, have traded for years on the NASDAQ stock market, sometimes even by some of the nation's most powerful politicians and their families.
Insider found that at least 12 members of Congress or their family members personally traded stocks in Twitter or Tesla in 2022.
Congress, meanwhile, is currently debating whether its members, their spouses, and dependent children should even be allowed to buy, hold or sell, individual stocks.
Musk, for his part, has emerged as an unavoidable global presence deeply involved in media, communications, transportation, and even space.
The reigning TIME magazine "person of the year," the New York Times this week dubbed Musk a "geopolitical chaos agent" who unpredictably involves himself in the governmental and international affairs of numerous nations, including Ukraine, Iran, China, Russia, and, of course, the United States.
Here are the 12 members of Congress who reported stock trades in Twitter and Tesla in 2022, according to an Insider analysis of lawmakers' personal financial disclosures filed with Congress: