Paul Atkins took over as Wall Street’s chief regulator just a week ago, but he’s already staring at what could become a political headache: all the president’s friends.
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s new chair is facing a battery of decisions that directly involve some of President Donald Trump’s closest connections.
Crypto firms, whose donations helped catapult Republicans to power, want the SEC to green-light a wave of novel products for everyday investors. The agency must decide how to proceed with a lawsuit against Elon Musk, whom it sued just before Inauguration Day. Trump Media & Technology Group, whose largest shareholder is the president, has called for an investigation of a London-based hedge fund’s bet against its stock. And Trump Media, Truth Social’s parent, is poised to launch a series of investment products of its own, likely needing SEC approval.
On top of all that, Atkins’ agency is running into MAGA world just as the White House pushes for more control over historically independent regulators like the SEC — setting up a potential challenge for the new chair, who was a member of the commission until 2008.
“He already has a hard job, and now that job will include managing a relationship with the White House that will be more robust than any chair previously would have had to manage,” said Jennifer Schulp, director of financial regulation studies at the Cato Institute, the libertarian-leaning think tank. “It’s going to be a lot of feeling in the dark.”
The rush of activity underlines a broader concern over the close ties that businesses have with the Trump administration, which has already begun shepherding major regulatory changes in corporate America’s favor. It comes as the president’s own business empire shows little hesitation about striking new deals or ventures, even if the optics raise alarms. Last week, a website for a memecoin that Trump launched right before his inauguration unveiled plans to host an “intimate, private” dinner with him for its biggest holders.
White House assistant press secretary Taylor Rogers said administration officials follow the necessary conflict-of-interest laws and ethical obligations, adding that “any implication otherwise is unfounded.” The SEC declined to comment.
“SEC Chairman Atkins and President Trump want the best for the American people and are aligned on maintaining fair, orderly and efficient markets while protecting everyday investors,” Rogers said in a statement.
There’s no indication that Trump is looking to force the SEC’s hand on any particular issue or that his backers are leaning on the White House for support. And many who know Atkins say there’s going to be little, if any, daylight between his agenda as chair and the administration’s hopes for the agency. At his confirmation hearing, Atkins told lawmakers he does not anticipate political interference during his time as chair.
“We should call the shots as they are,” he said.
But Democrats are fretting over the mere possibility. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who sharply criticized Atkins’ ties to the financial industry during his confirmation process, told POLITICO that the agency “exists to protect Main Street investors and keep our markets fair, not personally enrich the president and his family.”
“Instead of doing the bidding of Trump family businesses, Chair Atkins and the SEC must do their duty to the American people — including by investigating if the president’s associates used his tariff chaos to make millions based on inside information as Americans frantically checked their retirement savings,” Warren said, referring to the stock market’s wild swings over Trump’s trade war.
Warren, the Senate Banking Committee’s top Democrat, joined other lawmakers in calling for an SEC probe into the trading around Trump’s tariff announcements. On Friday, she also urged Atkins to avoid any “undue political interference and influence” as the SEC reviews Trump Media’s push into finance.
Democrats’ concerns stem partly from what they say is the lack of appreciation Trump is showing for the independence that financial and corporate watchdogs in the federal government have long enjoyed.
The president has quickly escalated his long-running feud with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell since taking back the White House, with calls for interest rate cuts and hints that he could fire the central bank chief, which he has since walked back as the markets plunged. Elsewhere, Trump has moved to oust several Democrats at various regulators, including the Federal Trade Commission and the National Labor Relations Board.
“For Trump, the personal is political, so the issue for all the people at the SEC and all the relevant regulators is: If you say no to him, are you going to get fired or demoted?” said a former SEC official, who was granted anonymity to speak freely.
The SEC has had run-ins with political heavyweights before.
In the first Trump administration, the SEC and other federal authorities charged then-Rep. Chris Collins — an early backer of the president — over insider trading. Trump pardoned Collins before leaving office in 2020. And in the early 1990s, the agency investigated a stock sale by the then-president’s son and future president, George W. Bush. Its chief of staff at the time: Paul Atkins.
“He’s not going to view his job as a handmaiden of the White House,” Cato’s Schulp said of how Atkins will handle investigations. But some former SEC officials caution that these are unusual times. Corey Frayer — who advised the agency’s last chair, Gary Gensler, on crypto issues — said “there’s no playbook for this.”
“My dispiriting sense now is it really doesn’t matter what the facts are. It’s about who you know,” said Herb Janick, a former SEC attorney who worked on the Bush investigation.
Still, Atkins, long a proponent of lighter-touch regulation, is widely believed to be in lockstep with the administration on hot-button issues like crypto. That could spell good news for the industry’s push to launch investment products tied to digital assets like XRP and Solana, Bloomberg Intelligence senior exchange-traded fund analyst Eric Balchunas said.
But other issues aren’t as clear-cut. The SEC has yet to publicly state what it will do about its lawsuit against Musk, who has been accused by the agency of failing to properly disclose his purchases of Twitter stock in 2022. Former SEC officials have said it would be a difficult case for the SEC to walk away from, and Republican Commissioner Hester Peirce voted in favor of bringing the lawsuit, according to Reuters.
What’s more, the investment firm Tuttle Capital Management is proposing to launch funds that would double investors’ exposure to Trump’s memecoin and one issued by First Lady Melania Trump, a risky but potentially lucrative offering.
The firm’s founder, Matthew Tuttle, said he doesn’t see the products as a lock for approval. But if it were any other SEC, he said, he wouldn’t have even bothered filing the applications.
“How could they deny them?” Balchunas said of the proposed memecoin products. “It’s literally your boss and his wife.”
