munger tolles olson

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REV DR

Musk Connections:Lawyer at Munger, Tolles & Olson, which has represented Tesla

Other Corporate Affiliations:Worked at investment banking firm Houlihan Lokey

DOGE Deployment:Head of team at USAID, assigned to General Services Administration and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

• Lewin reportedly headed a three person DOGE team at USAID. The Handbasketconfirmed that Lewin had access to both the General Services Administration and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

• Lewin previously worked as a litigation associate for Munger, Tolles & Olson. In 2024, a Tesla shareholder hired the firm to challenge $5.1 billion in plaintiff’s fees in a suit against the company. The plaintiff’s original lawsuit attempted to void Tesla’s $56 billion compensation paid to Musk in 2018. Prior to Lewin’s time at the firm, Munger represented Tesla in efforts to take the company private.

• Lewin’s now-deleted profile on Munger’s website claimed that Lewin’s op-eds had been cited by “dozens of Members of Congress, multiple cabinet secretaries and foreign heads of state.” Lewin also claimed to have confidentially advised the U.S. President, senior Congressional leaders, and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.

CORPORATE AFFILIATIONS WITH MUSK TIES

• Prior to his time at Munger, Lewin worked as an associate at BigLaw firms Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP and WilmerHale. Cravath successfully represented Musk against a challenge to Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity that sought $13 billion in damages. Both Cravath and WilmerHale represented Tesla at different stages of a California consumer antitrust case.

• Lewin also previously worked at the investment bank Houlihan Lokey. According to a Tesla proxy statement filed with the SEC in 2024, Houlihan was part of a special committee hired by Tesla to craft and recommend two proposals for a shareholder vote. The committee recommended the Board vote to move the company to Texas and ratify Musk’s 2018 compensation. Musk had previously pushed for Tesla to move its incorporation from Delaware to Texas after a Delaware judge struck down the $56 billion compensation.

PRIOR TO JOINING MUSK’S ORBIT, LEWIN WROTE OP-EDS CRITICIZING THE “ULTRA-CONSERVATIVE” SUPREME COURT AND BIG TECH

• In 2021, Lewin wrote an op-ed in The Guardian arguing that Facebook’s new oversight board, which made content moderation decisions, was not a genuine attempt at preventing misinformation. Because the board could only reinstate posts rather than take them down, Lewin argued that the board only “insulates Facebook from public criticism” and “will force regression in Facebook’s already lax moderation policies.”

• In 2022, while Lewin was a law student at Harvard, he wrote a New York Times op-ed with Professor Laurence Tribe. Tribe and Lewin argued that Biden’s administration should liquidate frozen Russian funds that were in US foreign exchange reserves. They argued that the funds, which could total $100 billion, should be liquidated and “transferred directly to assist humanitarian organizations and the Ukrainian government.”

• In 2022, Lewin wrote an op-ed in The Guardianwith Professor Tribe on the Supreme Court’s attacks on climate regulation in West Virginia v. EPA. Lewin and Tribe argued the Supreme Court’s decision to rule on the case was outside its constitutional bounds, stating “as its recent onrush of breaks with precedent, procedure and prudence to achieve the ultra-conservative majority’s policy preferences on abortion, public health and voting rights demonstrate, today’s court flouts all institutional bounds.”

*As Elon Musk’s DOGE continues to tear through agencies with little oversight or transparency, the Revolving Door Project is publishing profiles of reported DOGE employees: who they are, where they came from, and any conflicts of interest that might make their unfettered access to the federal government dangerous to the public. Read them all here.

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https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/occidental-petroleum-corporation-v-carijano/

Occidental Petroleum Corporation v. Carijano

 Petition for certiorari denied on April 22, 2013

Issue: (1) Whether, in an action brought by foreign plaintiffs for alleged injuries occurring in a foreign country to foreign land and foreign citizens, the foreign plaintiffs can obtain a strong presumption in favor of a U.S. forum by adding a nominal U.S. plaintiff for the tactical purpose of defeating a forum non conveniens dismissal; and (2) whether a federal court may assume hypothetically that it has Article III jurisdiction for the purpose of denying a forum non conveniens dismissal and retaining a case in federal court.

COUNSEL Marco Simons (argued), Richard Herz, Earthrights International, Washington, D.C.; Paul Hoffman, Benjamin Schonbrun, Michael D. Seplow, Schonbrun Desimone Seplow Harris & Hoffman LLP, Venice, California; Natalie L. Bridgeman, Law Offices of Natalie L. Bridgeman, San Francisco, California, for the plaintiffs-appellants.

Daniel P. Collins (argued), Manuel F. Cachán, Gabriel P. Sanchez,

Munger, Tolles & Olson L.L.P., Los Angeles, California; Ernest J. Getto, Michael G. Romey, Kirk A. Wilkinson,Latham & Watkins, L.L.P., Los Angeles, California, for the defendants-appellees.

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OPINION WARDLAW, Circuit Judge: These cross-appeals arise from the petroleum and oil exploration operations conducted by defendant Occidental Peruana (“OxyPeru”), an indirect subsidiary of defendant Occidental Petroleum Corporation (collectively “Occidental”), along the Rio Corrientes in the northern region of Peru. Plaintiffs, 25 members of the Achuar indigenous group dependent for their existence upon the rainforest lands and waterways along the river, and Amazon Watch, a California corporation, sued Occidental in Los Angeles County Superior Court for environmental contamination and release of hazardous waste. Although Occidental’s headquarters is located in Los Angeles County, Occidental removed the suit to federal district court where it successfully moved for dismissal on the ground that Peru is a more convenient forum. Plaintiffs timely appeal the dismissal of their suit. Occidental cross-appeals from the district court’s determination that its Rule 12 motion to dismiss Amazon Watch for lack of standing is moot. Because Occidental failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that Peru is a more convenient forum, and the district court gave insufficient weight to the strong presumption in favor of a domestic plaintiff’s choice of forum, the district court abused its discretion by dismissing the lawsuit without imposing mitigating conditions for the dismissal.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND We accept as true the facts alleged in the Achuar Plaintiffs’ and Amazon Watch’s (“Plaintiffs”) First Amended Complaint 7126 CARIJANO v. OCCIDENTAL PETROLEUM (“FAC”). See Vivendi SA v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 586 F.3d 689, 691 n.3 (9th Cir. 2009); Aguas Lenders Recovery Group v. Suez, S.A., 585 F.3d 696, 697 (2d Cir. 2009) (accepting the facts alleged in the complaint as true where the case was dismissed on forum non conveniens grounds without a factual hearing). Occidental is among the largest oil and gas companies in the United States. Its Peruvian operations began in the early 1970s with the development of a pair of lots near the Ecuadorean border known as “Block 1-AB.” Its subsidiary, OxyPeru, built Block 1-AB into a thriving extraction, processing, and distribution site, providing 26 percent of Peru’s total historical oil production from 1972 to 2000, at which point Occidental sold its stake in Block 1-AB to the Argentine oil company Pluspetrol.

The Peruvian government granted Occidental its first concession in the region in 1971; oil was found the next year. The company built dozens of wells, a 530- kilometer network of pipelines, refineries, and separation batteries for processing crude oil, as well as roads, heliports and camps to support the operation at Block 1-AB. The Achuar are indigenous people who have long resided along the rivers of the northern Peruvian rainforest. Block 1- AB encompasses significant portions of the Corrientes and Macusari rivers, home to several Achuar communities. The inhabitants use the rivers and their tributaries for drinking, fishing, and bathing. The region is remote, with access typically limited to small planes, helicopters, small boats, and canoes. The complaint alleges that, during its thirty years in the Achuar territories, Occidental knowingly utilized out-of-date methods for separating crude oil that contravened United States and Peruvian law, resulting in the discharge of millions of gallons of toxic oil byproducts into the area’s waterways. Achuar children and adults came into frequent contact with the contaminants by using polluted rivers and tributaries ...

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