Elon Musk's Drug Use Means He Isn't Allowed to Enter Certain SpaceX Buildings
Victor Tangermann Futurism
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. (photo: AP)
As the Wall Street Journal reports, that's because the mercurial entrepreneur could risk having to reveal his frequent contacts with foreign nationals, most notably Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Sources also told the newspaper that Musk's long-rumored drug use — said to range from ketamine to LSD — could be an issue if the CEO were to apply for a higher security clearance than his current "top secret" status, which allows him to see some of SpaceX's clandestine government work, but not all of it.
As a result, Musk isn't able to do some surprisingly basic things — unlike roughly 400 SpaceX employees who have permissions for "sensitive compartmented information."
According to the WSJ, Musk isn't even allowed to enter most facilities where work related to SpaceX's Starshield spy satellite program is being carried out — a strange situation for the man running the company.
Let Me In
Musk also isn't clued into what exactly his space company is launching when it comes to classified cargo.
That sets him apart from his peers. According to the WSJ, CEOs at competing companies, including Boeing, the United Launch Alliance, and Lockheed Martin, have the necessary authorizations to get a peek.
Musk currently holds a "top-secret" clearance, something that took him "years" to obtain, according to the newspaper's sources. That's at least in part because of the time he publicly smoked marijuana with podcaster Joe Rogan back in 2018, which is technically illegal according to federal laws.
Meanwhile, a seemingly afraid-to-be-left-out Musk argued that highly classified information should be made public.
"Most of the stuff that I’m aware of... the reason to keep it top secret is it’s so boring," he said during an October town hall meeting, as quoted by the WSJ. "We don’t want to give exact instructions on how to make a nuclear bomb or something like that, but unless there’s a genuine risk to the country, all the information in the government should be public."
However, now that he has the ear of the president of the United States, the situation could soon look different. After all, getting a top security clearance shouldn't be too difficult when the richest man in the world pairs up with the most powerful one.
