[andy_ppp]

Would Musk have standing for asking that question about non-profit to for profit companies? I think this would be a role for the government rather than a private individual and the Trump admin is not exactly fond of enforcing regulations.

[DeusExMachina]

It does not matter what standing Musk has, the question is the important part, not the asker. You can accuse him of hipocrisy and that still makes no difference. He can still be the vehicle for the question to be asked.

The role of the government is to make the laws, and to apply them when violation are reported. It is also to regulate new situations as they arise, for example, if a court decides the law allows a non-profit to become a for-profit and that is deemed as not desirable, new laws can be passed to amend that.

It is the government roles, however, to going around to aks hypothetical questions before they are risen by someone, as there are too many possible hypotheticals, most never materialize, and that would be a conflict of interest. In that case Musk is as good as a vehicle as anyone else because he is bringing to the court a real-life problem that needs to be decided.

The Trump admin is not fond of enforcing regulations as the Biden admin was not fond of enforcing other regulations. That shows you can't expect the govenment to take that role since it's discretionary.

[ryan_j_naughton]

There is a reason standing exists. We don't want a society where anyone can litigate the ill-defined "important questions of society" at will.

I agree with you that this is an important question.

I disagree with you that, "Musk is as good as a vehicle as anyone else because he is bringing to the court a real-life problem that needs to be decided"

Standing is itself a very important and critical concept. If anyone could sue over any “important” public issue without standing, courts would be asked to referee disputes that are normally handled by elections, legislation, agency rulemaking, oversight hearings, and public debate. We don't want the courts to be such arbiters of so many matters and want their purview to be more narrow by design.