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Thursday, January 23, 2025

Elon Musk Is not Allowed To Know About SpaceX’s Spy Satellites


SpaceX has contracts to do all kinds of labor for the US authorities, from placing Toyotas on the moon to plunging the Worldwide Area Station into the ocean. The corporate’s work consists of secret tasks for the U.S. army, however CEO Elon Musk wouldn’t know a lot about that — he’s not allowed into these rooms at company HQ.

Entry to that sort of categorised information requires safety clearance, and Musk does even have that: He’s held High Secret-level clearance since 2022. Particular tasks, nevertheless, can require further addenda on high of the generalized clearance. SpaceX’s attorneys, in accordance with a brand new report from the Wall Avenue Journal, have suggested in opposition to Musk asking for these further packages — for worry that he could lose even the clearance he has as a consequence of his unfastened lips, frequent conferences with overseas officers, and drug use:

The SpaceX attorneys started analyzing the dangers of looking for a better safety clearance for Musk after the Journal reported in June of final yr about Musk’s use of ketamine, in accordance with one individual conversant in the assessment. The attorneys and executives concluded that if SpaceX sought a better safety clearance, it could danger Musk being turned down, or worse, shedding the top-secret clearance he already has.

Musk’s present top-secret clearance provides him entry to some national-security secrets and techniques, however he lacks particular authorizations that the federal government requires of most SpaceX workers who work on categorised packages, in accordance with the folks conversant in the matter. These workers—greater than 400—have permissions for what is called “delicate compartmented data,” the federal government’s time period for need-to-know secrets and techniques about how intelligence is collected and the place it comes from, one of many folks stated. A smaller variety of SpaceX workers have entry to secrets and techniques the federal government deems much more delicate known as particular entry packages.

Musk’s top-secret clearance, with out these authorizations, doesn’t entitle him to entry sure details about SpaceX’s spy satellite tv for pc program, known as Starshield, which affords satellite tv for pc {hardware} and companies to national-security companies, the folks stated. He isn’t allowed to enter most SpaceX amenities the place categorised work is finished and mentioned, and he hardly ever is aware about categorised components of cargo that his rockets blast into area, similar to sensors and different {hardware} hooked up to spy satellites.

Musk’s firm launches all matter of apparatus into area for the U.S. authorities, and Musk isn’t allowed to know what most of it’s — a limitation not shared by the CEOs of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, who the Journal states each have higher-level “delicate compartmented data” entry.

In fact, The Journal affords this might all change on a dime when Donald Trump enters the white home subsequent month, by the proposed Division of Authorities Effectivity, however there’s no assure that it’ll. Musk has reportedly not precisely gotten together with the Trump camp, along with his behavior of taking part in up his personal significance apparently grating on the nerves of Trump’s workforce. Trump himself has even informed audiences he “can’t eliminate” Musk, irrespective of how a lot he tries.

The cringily-named DOGE could be the regulatory equal of handing your youthful cousin an unplugged Ps controller so that they really feel like they’re taking part in — as a physique not created by Congress, its powers are restricted to advising the manager department on choices to make. It’s solely potential that it exists to make its members really feel vital whereas maintaining them away from something they’ll actually break (or annoy). If that’s the case, further safety clearances could not include the territory.

The truth that Musk can’t know what goes to area on his personal rockets is nice enjoyable, however one has to surprise how a lot he’d actually danger by asking for additional safety clearances. In spite of everything, NASA has a proud historical past of counting on the brains of oldsters similar to Musk.

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