Elon Musk exercised the kind of power past tycoons could only dream of, single-handedly bullying elected members of Congress into dropping a deal to keep the federal government operating into the new year. Republicans and Democrats were left scrambling, and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson was left with an even more complicated fiscal puzzle and the whiff of an impending sell-by date on his time in leadership. IPM's Washington correspondent, Linda Kenyon, breaks it down.

In this week's Legal Issues in the News the University of Illinois College of Law's Verity Winship explains the SEC versus Elon Musk.