Elon Musk's X urges Supreme Court to block IRS access to Coinbase user data

Elon Musk's social media platform X has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent law enforcement from forcing companies, such as crypto exchange Coinbase, to hand over users' financial data.

In a Friday amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court, X Corp. said that the Internal Revenue Service used a subpoena to obtain — without a warrant — three years of transaction records from Coinbase concerning over 14,000 of the exchange’s customers, including petitioner James Harper’s records.

Social media giant X, along with seven other researchers and advocacy groups, is challenging the use of so-called "suspicionless" subpoenas, arguing that such demands violate user privacy rights. The social media giant claimed that the IRS violated Harper's Fourth Amendment rights "when it obtained a vast quantity of Coinbase records by means of a dragnet subpoena devoid of individualized suspicion."

On Monday, the Supreme Court requested the federal government to respond, according to its petition docket.

In 2020, Harper filed a suit against the IRS for its role in the alleged unlawful seizure of information that identified him as a crypto holder. A federal court, however, ruled in 2023 that the IRS acted within its authority in accessing Coinbase user data.