Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Names and faces
■ A top prosecutor for special counsel Robert Mueller has a book coming out this fall about the two-year investigation into the alleged ties between Russia and the 2016 campaign of President Donald Trump. Random House announced Monday that Andrew Weissmann’s “Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation” will be published Sept. 29. Weissmann, often the target of criticism from Trump supporters, is calling the book a meticulous account of the Mueller team’s probe and its ongoing battles with the Trump administration. “I felt it was necessary to record this episode in our history, as seen and experienced by an insider,” he said in a statement. “This is the story of our investigation into how our democracy was attacked by Russia and how those who condoned and ignored that assault undermined our ability to uncover the truth. My obligation as a prosecutor was to follow the facts where they led, using all available tools and undeterred by the onslaught of the president’s unique powers to undermine our work.” Weissmann added that “‘Where Law Ends’ documents the choices we made, good and bad, for all to see and judge and learn from.” The Mueller Report, released in April 2019, found no criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 presidential election. But it also did not reach a conclusion on whether the president had obstructed justice. The investigation led to more than 30 indictments. Weissmann led the case against former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in 2018.
■ Elon Musk is now richer than Warren Buffett. The fortune of Tesla’s chief executive officer rose $6.1 billion on Friday, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, after the carmaker’s stock surged 11%. Musk is now the world’s seventh-richest person, also ahead of tech titans Larry Ellison and Sergey Brin. The 49-year-old owns about a fifth of Tesla’s outstanding stock, which makes up the bulk of his $70.5 billion fortune. Shares of the electric-car maker have risen 269% this year. His majority ownership of closely held SpaceX accounts for about $15 billion. Musk is the latest tech entrepreneur to rise above Buffett in the ranks of the world’s richest. Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO, and Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Brin also have leapfrogged the Oracle of Omaha. Surpassing Buffett may be especially sweet for Musk. In an interview in May, he said that he wasn’t “the biggest fan” of his fellow billionaire. Buffett has also criticized Musk, saying last year that although Musk was “a remarkable guy,” he had “room for improvement” in behaving like a CEO, singling out his tweeting habits. The 89-year-old Buffett has given away more than $37 billion of Berkshire Hathaway shares since 2006.