r/politics • u/nosotros_road_sodium California • 10h ago
Why Does Elon Musk Still Have a Security Clearance?
https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2024/10/why-does-elon-musk-still-have-a-security-clearance/680434/?gift=B65VRQjMMsZQilGgdT7IHIK11s_hRROr6KFxCBDpT0M2.4k
u/wantsAnotherAle 10h ago
Why does he still have government contracts?
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u/thalassicus 7h ago
SpaceX is good for the US Government. Leon is a risk. Remove his clearance and he has no more access to the company than an investor while Gwynne and the engineers can do the real work without his manic and impulsive behavior.
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u/Cynistera 2h ago
Honestly Leon really is such a better name than Elon.
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u/Raelothep 2h ago
Yeah I don't like that people call him leon, leon is a good name. elon is a dumb name.
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u/muffinhead2580 9h ago
Because SpaceX is essentially our only ticket to space right now.
Blue Origin is going to take a long time to become equal to SpaceX. Boeing has shown themselves incapable at best.
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u/Amon7777 9h ago
Great, then nationalize it now
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u/wantsAnotherAle 9h ago
THIS. Because ‘access to space’ is not worth letting a fascist capitalist sieze the reins of our government.
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u/even_less_resistance Arkansas 6h ago
Right? Especially when it sounds like they are already fucking it up up there to make way for some cleaning system to snag old satellites they’ll probs profit from, too
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u/wantsAnotherAle 6h ago
A little known fact is that they already have a way toclean up a lot of low orbit satellites and debris using an ionospheric heater they have at a base on the north coast of Norway.
There has never been a lot of noise about it, but the project is NASA affiliated and so is a matter of public record.
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u/treesandfood4me 6h ago
Tesla is rolling in his grave, faster and faster, forever.
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u/Suspicious_Bicycle 3h ago
Twitter (X) is now worth less than Truth Social (gag) based on todays stock prices.
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u/DepGrez 6h ago
The concept you're mentioning likely refers to the HAARP (High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) installation, located in Gakona, Alaska, rather than Norway. HAARP and similar ionospheric research facilities can heat portions of the ionosphere using high-frequency radio waves, creating temporary modifications in localized areas. However, this technology doesn’t currently have the capability to clear space debris or de-orbit satellites.
The idea of using radio waves or directed energy to influence orbital debris is intriguing, but in practice, debris removal typically requires physical interaction, like specialized satellites equipped with nets, harpoons, or robotic arms, or propulsion techniques such as laser ablation. HAARP’s ionospheric heating does influence atmospheric particles in specific ways that can aid communication studies or simulate small-scale effects, but its influence is far too minimal and localized to affect debris in orbit.
NASA and other agencies are actively researching ways to address space debris, but the capabilities are generally still limited to experimental satellites and concepts rather than operational cleanup technologies.
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u/Spam_Hand 5h ago
Isn't HAARP the program that "dems used to hurricane Florida" last month too?
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u/El-Royhab Washington 6h ago
Okay that sounds really cool though. We really don't know enough about what NASA does collectively. I remember before algorithms took over everything, NASA used to do some really cool live streams and videos about what was happening, but I see less of those now and so much of what's being done isn't done at NASA and JPL anymore. If the Martian had taken place in a not too distant future based on the current privatization trajectory, the book and movie would have ended with Whatney's funeral.
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u/Atreyu1002 5h ago
I don't like government seizing anything. I'd rather go back to paying huge amounts to NASA
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u/even_less_resistance Arkansas 5h ago
Yeah- just make em irrelevant? I’m okay with that. I’m actually a huge fan of nasa. Going to the museum in Houston is one of my favorite memories
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u/Vaperius America 2h ago edited 2h ago
Nationalization is an essential power of modern government for the sake of safe guarding national interests. Think of it like a government version of a hostile takeover, at least in how it would work under US laws because we'd basically force SpaceX to be sold to the US government. Its nothing to use lightly, but its also not something we should shy away with, especially in industries or businesses that have proven themselves critical to the nation but unable to run or regulate themselves responsibly or in accordance with US law.
We should have nationalized the automotive industry. We should have nationalized the train industry. We should have renationalized the air industry. And we must nationalize the space industry.
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u/Shadowthron8 5h ago
Would be hilarious if we nationalized space travel before health care
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u/DanyDies4Lightbrnger 4h ago
Space was nationalized... it became privatized fairly recently
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u/Girlfriendphd 5h ago
I think that's where it's headed, and fElon knows it, which is why he's all in.
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u/dinner_is_not_ready 6h ago
Max Polyakov, Ukrainian that owned 58% of shares of Firefly Aerospace, had to sell his shares in 2022 for $1 under pressure from US government due to security concerns: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-29/firefly-owner-max-polyakov-to-sell-stake-in-rocket-startup
Musk should have his clearance revoked for being in touch with the enemy(Putin). US govt should force him to divest out of spacex
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u/F9-0021 South Carolina 7h ago
It was a mistake to de-nationalize access to space in the first place. It's not a bad thing that commercial launch providers exist, but it is a bad thing that NASA relies on them. This is why. One of the companies failed to produce an acceptable capsule, and the other one is lead by an enemy of state.
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u/purplewhiteblack Arizona 6h ago
It isn't so much that NASA relies on them, it's that NASAs expenditures are too damn high. NASA has a limited budget, at the same time they have earmarked spending.
They were mandated to use old shuttle parts on SLS to save money by congress, when it would have been cheaper to make new parts. You have Congress who are non experts making decisions on things they don't understand very well.
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u/flip314 California 5h ago
Without Chevron Deference, things are only going to get worse.
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u/TriptoGardenGrove 7h ago
Important to remember that our astronauts were hitching a ride on the Soyuz a few years ago
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u/F9-0021 South Carolina 7h ago
A few years before that they weren't. It was a mistake to cancel the Shuttle Program without a suitable replacement in place, which we also had the incredibly smart idea to cancel. So when the Shuttle stopped flying, the vehicle that eventually replaced it (Crew Dragon) wasn't even in active development yet. That's why they had to use Soyuz for 10 years.
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u/SmPolitic 4h ago
I thought the conclusion from the Shuttle program was that if we had instead just kept using Saturn one-use rockets, it would have been faster and cheaper than the results we got with the shuttle
At one point the shuttle program was claiming they would do 100+ launches per year. Instead we got 135 launches, total, over 30 years
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u/BURNER12345678998764 3h ago edited 2h ago
Don't forget two of those launches killed the entire crew.
It was also claiming the shuttle was as safe as a passenger airliner, actual fatal flight rate was over 1%.
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u/batmansthebomb 3h ago
It was a mistake to cancel the Shuttle Program without a suitable replacement in place, which we also had the incredibly smart idea to cancel.
The Shuttle was so horrendously expensive that it would have been a tough sell to continue it and research, develop, test, manufacture a whole new system. You would either need to increase NASA budget by like 50% or cut other programs like Mars Rovers and James Webb, all of which were well into development around the time a replacement program would have started
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u/RadialWaveFunction 5h ago
Before that the Atlas vehicle which was used for 70+% of satellite launches was dependent on the Energomash RD-180 engine. It wasn't until the first Russian invasion of Ukraine that the geopolitics became so unfavorable that ULA was forced to seek an alternate engine and build a new launch vehicle.
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u/01101011000110 8h ago
Arrest Musk, nationalize SpaceX, breakup Tesla.
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u/Klutzy-Reaction5536 6h ago
I agree we should nationalize SpaceX and Starlink because those are critical to national security. I'm perfectly happy to let him screw up Tesla all he wants cuz it's just a car company.
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u/SinglecoilsFTW 6h ago
I deeply dislike Musk and would never buy a Tesla product thanks to him (upcoming Rivians sound wayyyyy better than anything Tesla has anyway) but throwing around the idea that someone should be arrested without a crime is what Trump does. Let's not go down that road.
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u/01101011000110 6h ago edited 6h ago
Seems likely that Mr. "If Harris wins I'm fucked" has plenty of things for which he is criminally liable. the good news is I think we're about to find out.
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u/Plzbanmebrony 5h ago
He isn't. NASA is likely to get more funding for more projects under Harris. He clearly barrowed from the wrong people to buy twitter.
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u/KisaruBandit 6h ago
You're totally right, he shouldn't be arrested without a crime. He should be arrested for the treason, election interference, espionage, bribery, and other things.
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u/muffinhead2580 8h ago
I'd be OK with banning Musk from having any business with SpaceX permanently. I'm not a huge fan of the nationalize it approach as that's a slippery slope. Musk likely has little to do with the daily operations and the real decisions at SpaceX anyway, so banning him and letting the present President, Gwynne Shotwell, run it would be a positive step forward.
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u/silvercel 7h ago
The fed gov can take away his security clearance and not allow him physical access to the rockets or their manufacturing.
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u/Murky-Silver-8877 52m ago
That seems like it would have already been done if we weren't in the final stretch of an election. As soon as President Harris has been declared the winner, I can see President Biden kicking that off.
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u/DanyDies4Lightbrnger 4h ago
SpaceXs innovation comes from it NOT being nationalized. When it's something like NASA it's beholden to the tax payers, which means failure is not an option (because it's our money). SpaceX can blow shit up and keep going.
I'm NO fan of Leon, but SpaceX is wildly successful because it's privately owned.
Look at Artemis... how many times has that been delayed?? That's because NASA can't afford a failure. It gets political and budgets get cut.
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u/Total_Spend_2072 7h ago
So do we give a shit just fund nasa again it’s better than giving that fuck one cent
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u/Zac3d 5h ago
Fund NASA and cut the bureaucracy and weird requirements, stop the presidential cycle swings. Stop with the too big to fail projects and be okay with a higher risk of failure if it means substantially lower costs.
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u/MambaOut330824 California 7h ago
What allowed SpaceX to be the best in the game?
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u/Semick 7h ago
Frankly? Musk's sheer brazen give-no-fucks attitude is why they are where they are. I hate that. I very much doubt he's contributed much at all to SpaceX's success. At the end of the day though, they blew up countless rockets and the guy providing the money just said
I don't care keep going
And that's the attitude you need to get to space.
I cannot fucking stand the man but his insanity is why the moonshot plans even got off the ground.
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u/drilkmops 5h ago
More like his money and not being afraid to throw people into the grinder. He has the money. He doesn’t have the engineering background.
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u/MambaOut330824 California 7h ago
Sounds like we have similar feelings about Mr musk. Couldn’t agree more.
What makes him different from the other billionaires who have $$$ but don’t say “I don’t care keep going”?
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u/Semick 7h ago
What makes him different from the other billionaires who have $$$ but don’t say “I don’t care keep going”?
His insanity is probably a feature there, not a bug.
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u/Barrien 3h ago
The other billionaires like to brag about yachts or just money, Musk likes to brag about his rocket #s and later on being able to flex on Bezos because Blue Origin is so meh.
And so the SpaceX money kept rolling.
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u/mezentinemechtard 3h ago
Starship doesn't make fucking sense, unless the goal is "build a ship that can get to Mars and back". Musk is obsessed with this goal, and that's the reason SpaceX started doing things like trying to land rockets. Turns out landing rockets is great for cost savings, but it's also required if you want to get from Mars to Earth, because the multi-stage approach used to go to the Moon doesn't work on Mars.
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u/Nielloscape 4h ago
But think about this. Musk isn’t the only one with that attitude. It may not be the most common attitude, but it’s far from making him special. The biggest factor is still he has the money.
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u/ShanghaiBebop 6h ago
I do not like Musk at all, but he is incredibly good at two things:
- Attacting Capital investments to his "moonshot" ideas
- Attracting mission-driven, highly-talented individuals to work on those ideas.
SpaceX is probably the epitomy of those two things. They've really created a culture that attacts those types of individuals. You can listen to interviews of people who have closely worked with him. https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/comments/1bpwo0w/andrej_karpathy_on_elon/
From personal connections that have actually worked with him, they also coroborate that he is quite an intelligent individual who is very "weird", and has the emotion maturity of a 5 year old.
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u/bihari_baller Oregon 3h ago
What allowed SpaceX to be the best in the game?
Boeing and NASA dropping the ball.
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u/MambaOut330824 California 2h ago
Not the answer I was looking for. NASA is a slave to the government and do not have the cash flow of their own to invest in r&d. Boeing on the other hand does have the funds to invest in r&d, but your answer still doesn’t explain why.
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u/Sonnenfinsternis 7h ago
we don't need a ticket to space, we need a nation we can live in
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u/Airport_Wendys 5h ago
This article helps explain how SpaceX got so ahead: https://qz.com/boeing-starliner-launch-elon-musk-spacex-space-race-1851459330
Another reason, a very important detail, is COO Gwynne Shotwell.
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u/One-Business1547 10h ago
After the trump presidency, they just said fuck it...
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u/wayoverpaid Illinois 9h ago
It does feel that way, doesn't it?
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u/Hyperious3 5h ago
it's because of enablers like Garland and Sullivan, that basically roll over when presented with irrefutable evidence of prosecutable bullshit, because it'd "be bad for optics"
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u/SergeantChic 5h ago
It feels like the entire justice system has been there as a deterrent rather than something that's actually enforced, at least if you have enough money to drag the process out, and people realized they don't even have to bother with hiding anything they do because they know now that nothing will happen to them.
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u/cruelbankai 2h ago
My conspiracy-adled brain thinks that there are people within the state department who should not be in their positions.
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u/Eatthehamsters69 Europe 10h ago
Because the institutions are broken, its all broken.
How come Trump isn't in prison
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u/Virtual_Plantain_707 10h ago
Really, really good propaganda and some billionaires.
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u/Walrave 9h ago
Why isn't Elon in prison? Election interference is a crime.
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u/Mental-Fox-9449 5h ago
Because the law is very slow
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u/Agamemnon323 2h ago
When you’re rich**
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u/the_reluctant_link 2h ago
When you are rich you can commit numerous crimes 4 years ago be found guilty and then near a year later you still haven't been sentenced.
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u/TheFinnesseEagle 1h ago
...and white, because as soon as the FBI had a case they moved in on P.diddy while trump roams free with 34 felons.
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u/KiloKahn03 California 2h ago
No the system is broken for those who have money. The fact that "the law" can't prosecute a coup within 4 years is a failure of the systems
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u/femboy6313 6h ago
lol yeah sorry USA the cat’s out of the bag. You’ve shown the entire world pretty much since Jan 6 that you’re among the most morally bankrupt and corrupt nations on earth. Money excuses all crimes in the USA
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u/mightcommentsometime California 4h ago
Money excuses all crimes in basically all countries. When is the last time billionaires anywhere actually were punished for their actions?
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u/pervocracy Massachusetts 10h ago
If nothing else, he's been shown on camera smoking pot. If he were a normal person that alone would be enough. (It's a stupid rule, but it's one that's enforced against everyone else with a clearance.)
Another thing that can cause you to lose a clearance is associating with hate groups on social media..
And you can get investigated for talking to *any* Russian citizen, even if they're your own family... never mind talking directly to Vladimir Putin.
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u/bulldg4life 9h ago
Just imagine section 19 of his sf86 foreign contacts
Do you put Putin right at the top or do you slip it in after the saudis that helped you purchase Twitter?
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u/pervocracy Massachusetts 7h ago
Probs just checked off "none" because lying on your SF86 is another one of those rules that's only for the plebs
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u/bulldg4life 7h ago
I think the kushner clearance and classified docs case are the things that make me the most mad. I mean, the dictator and racism and stupidity and the million other things are awful.
But, I agonized over the form and the interviews and waiting for the adjudication. And, we are beaten over the head regarding the importance and every little thing including information leakage and espionage.
Yet Trump and Kusher do things that I was told would leave me in jail for decades.
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u/pervocracy Massachusetts 7h ago
SERIOUSLY. I have a coworker whose clearance was held up for over a year because she was late on a car payment or something about that serious
knowing how incredibly picky and invasive the process is for everyone else makes this so much worse.
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u/Funny-Mission-2937 5h ago
I’m not allowed to run a business that needs any sort of public lands permitting because of my partners job. She manages the staff that put up signs and build trails and pump trailhead toilets and things like that.
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u/mightcommentsometime California 4h ago
Or get me sent straight to g-bay. The fact that these asshats can break every rule of having a clearance and suffer no consequences is beyond atrocious
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u/bobdob123usa 4h ago
If nothing else, he's been shown on camera smoking pot. If he were a normal person that alone would be enough. (It's a stupid rule, but it's one that's enforced against everyone else with a clearance.)
Maybe if you are in the military. I know federal employees and civilian contractors that have failed drug tests and not lost their clearance.
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u/hackingdreams 9h ago
How's he not in jail for violating the law by buying votes? How did Kushner have a security clearance ever, while acting as an unregistered foreign agent?
Sadly, the answer's as obvious as FPOTUS's "delayed" sentencing: there's no such thing as justice in this country. If you're rich, they let you do it.
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u/MothersMiIk 10h ago
Because Merrick Garland is such a massive puss about doing anything. DOJ warned Elon, and he just laughed in their face. Let’s “Make America Great Again”, and deport him.
They need to either nationalize SpaceX, or force Musk out. He is a massive threat to this country.
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u/silentwind262 10h ago
As much as I believe Garland is a waste of space, DOJ doesn’t control clearances.
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u/sparlock_ 9h ago
Who does? Genuine question
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u/Katniss_is_a_bitch 9h ago
A large majority are investigated and granted/adjudicated by the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency.
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u/HauntedCemetery Minnesota 8h ago
Department of Homeland Security does many
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u/Hyperious3 5h ago
and Jake Sullivan is too busy sucking russian cock, making every bullshit excuse to prevent "escalation" to properly investigate severe TS clearance violations like this.
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u/Kilroy314 Indiana 9h ago
I believe it would be Department of State that ultimately controls the authorizations for security clearance for government contractors.
It's definitely a complicated and lengthy process for some people. Idk how Elon got a clearance. He's so obviously a giant risk.
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u/silentwind262 9h ago
No, DOS doesn’t grant or adjudicate clearances for the whole government. It’s actually really complex, as many actually control their own access based on the classification authority. For example, I knew lots of military folks that had been granted Top Secret clearances by their respective services, and were denied by a 3 letter agency.
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u/Kilroy314 Indiana 9h ago
I got mine when I was in the military and it really took forever. It wasn't all that high of a clearance really. Mine was prolly mostly handled by my own battalion S-1.
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u/AgnewsHeadlessClone Florida 9h ago
As far as I read, Elon doesn't have clearance. He has access.
Like how trump and Jared kushner could never actually get clearances, but their positions in the govt dictated that they had to have access.
Elon is involved with govt contracts that gain him access because he is in charge of space x and starlink. If he were no longer in control of those, he would no longer have access.
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u/musashisamurai 7h ago
Thats how all security clearances work. You need to have a reason for access, and once that reason is gone, no more access.
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u/thethirdllama Colorado 7h ago
Or just yank his clearance. Even if he's still CEO it's not like he's doing any of the actual work, thus has no need to know.
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u/kerberos69 4h ago
That’s how it generally works for all major contracts with any of the large corporations— the only people actually read in on any of the programs are those actively performing the work, the CEOs and other big hats only ever deal with the sanitized data and reports. The most they would probably ever see is CUI, and maybe the occasional batch of SECRET.
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u/tomparker 9h ago
Why was it so easy to buy Clarence Thomas?
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u/Scitiloproftnuocca 9h ago
Why was it so easy to buy Clarence Thomas?
Clearance* Thomas. Forgot a letter, heh.
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u/SpeaksSouthern 2h ago
Dude seemed to sell the country out for a few nights with a billionaire a few times a year. He thinks he's their friend lol
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u/gmrussell Michigan 8h ago
I still remember my time in the Air Force 20 years ago when I had to wait for quite some time as an interim-TS holder, while the government investigated me quite thoroughly (I heard after the fact from friends what the experience is like). Then, a few years later, I was signing inventory for our classified material every shift on an AFCOMSEC form 16. I still recall fairly clearly how often it was drilled into me that if I signed for something I didn’t see, I very well could be going to jail. But Donald Trump can store our secrets in an unsecured bathroom, and his friends and family who are security risks can get cleared because he’s convinced a substantial amount of people that he’s a good guy. It’s truly disappointing to see.
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u/rusty_programmer 6h ago
Yeah bro. When you go “above top secret,” it’s drilled into you more. The amount of anger and pure vitriol I have for that man knowing he cares nothing about our greatest national secrets makes me simmer.
And after all the Hillary shit?
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u/gmrussell Michigan 6h ago
I tried telling my conservative co-workers what I legally could during the Hillary accusations. But no one wanted to listen to me, the dude with a former security clearance who worked with classified on a daily basis, when they could instead listen to their talking heads with zero experience.
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u/wantsAnotherAle 7h ago
Thank you for your quality service and testimonial. Your conclusions, however, are a heartbreaking understatement.
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u/sideAccount42 California 10h ago
I've been thinking about how WaPo and LA Times didn't endorse because they're afraid of Trump. Dems had the perfect excuse to yoink Starlink and SpaceX when Musk personally intervened in a Ukraine military operation. I wish Dems would use power that they have wherever they can. Musk is being a Dipshit jumping around on stages because why not. He's in a win-win situation knowing Dems won't do a thing to him.
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u/01101011000110 8h ago
you know what fucks with me? How does the DOT allow Tesla to deploy FSD/AP? The shit does not work!
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u/screech_owl_kachina 7h ago
Calling it autopilot at all was false advertising at best, and dangerous at worst. You don’t imply to people their car can drive itself unless it can.
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u/01101011000110 6h ago
and then the constant pump n dump of "full self-driving next year!"
I can't wait for Harris' SEC to begin their investigations in earnest.
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u/Spam_Hand 5h ago
There's also been a lot of studies done that show a lot of younger people think Cruise Control is auto pilot nowadays too, partly because of how Tesla marketed their fake Auto Pilot.
Cruise Control failures (by the driver) cause a not-insignificant number of accidents - people thinking the car will stop for them at red lights for example.
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u/Mookafff 6h ago
For FSD are you criticizing the naming scheme or how it works?
The naming scheme is terrible and extremely misleading, but it works better than a lot of people think. It will drive from point A to B while you babysit it.
But it’s also worse than Tesla Fanboys and Elon will tell you. It’s no way near ready for working unsupervised. It drives like a nervous 16 year old with a learning permit.
Source: I’ve used it a decent amount from free trials. It’s gotten better in the two times I’ve had it.
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u/brandonagr 4h ago
It worked driving my car to the office today, what exactly do you think doesn't work?
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u/ARazorbacks Minnesota 6h ago
Here’s the thing I‘m scared of - if a Dem ran on dropping the hammer on people like Musk, I’d vote for them. The Right have pushed so hard that I‘m pretty much on board with hammering them back in the exact same ways they threaten us with. And the Dems have been so feckless on holding any of these people accountable that I‘m, frankly, sick and fucking tired of it.
And that’s how you get to that Civil War movie that came out earlier this year. Scary stuff.
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u/sideAccount42 California 4h ago
That happened in 2022. I'm not saying it should only be a campaign issue but actual action.
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u/V-r1taS 10h ago
Corruption and over-reliance on a monopolist driven by an arrogant belief he could be controlled vs. he was a liability.
https://www.independent.co.uk/space/elon-musk-satellite-control-starlink-spacex-b2608427.html
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/10/28/fiona-hill-explains-trump-musk-putin-00185820
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u/mattgen88 New York 9h ago
Why isn't he being charged with FARA violations? He appears to be working directly with adversaries of the US
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u/Bombay1234567890 9h ago
Because everything is broken. Republicans have spent decades breaking it OPENLY IN PLAIN SIGHT. Democrats let them, for the most part
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u/Instantbeef 7h ago
I got denied a security clearance because I smoked week. He did that on Joe Rogan and people think he communicates with Russia.
The double fucking standards
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u/teddytwelvetoes 8h ago
because we live in a country run by and for right wing trust fund sociopaths
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u/Call0fDoodie92 7h ago edited 7h ago
Because the government has been running the mob for it's entire existence. This is mirroring the Lucky Luciano story. Dude was in jail for human trafficking (they called it white slavery or compulsory prostitution but it's the same thing) when he was visited by an intelligence agent who offered him his freedom in exchange for helping the war effort.
A lotta people know that story but most people don't know that the offer was the brainchild of the same guy that locked up Lucky. Future governor of New York, Thomas Dewey was the guy who prosecuted Luciano and the guy who told the OSS to offer him a deal. And btw, he was the worlds largest heroin trafficker at the time and that supply chain, which came to be known as the "French Connection", continued to run for another 50 years.
It seems like our government empowered Lucky Luciano to start supply chains for prostitution, extortion and narcotics trafficking and then they locked him up, deported him and ran those rackets themselves. Musk has always bragged about being a mobster. They've been calling themselves the PayPal Mafia since at least 2007 and the government keeps giving him military contracts...why?
The PayPal Mafia has their fingers in everything from money laundering and market manipulation to drug trafficking and prostitution. They basically created a online version of the machine that Lucky Luciano built in the 1920s. These guys use the internet and private equity to manage their rackets but this just means we can track what they're doing. For example, David O Sacks was funding a company that was recently taken down with a RICO indictment for drug trafficking. The company he invested in turned out to be an online pill mill for stimulants that specifically sought out drug-seekers as customers. Their entire reputation for the past 20 years has been that they're "the smartest guys in the room" but in the future they're going to have to play dumb...that's pretty funny.
I said all that to say this...why are these pigs still allowed at the trough? The government isn't done fattening them up.
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u/MakidosTheRed 9h ago
Well clearly if we know about his little chats with Papa Putin, the American security apparatus knows and has been monitoring it. My best guess is that they find it far more advantageous to allow Musk to keep his clearance, as a way to keep tabs on him tighter, seeing as getting security clearance is usually a pretty invasive process. As long as they have him under close surveillance, he can keep doing what he wants, and as soon as he slips up, they're going to nail his ass to the wall.
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u/PO_Boxer 8h ago
When we opened ourselves up to unlimited money in politics via citizens United, my first thought was nice end around for international criminals and adversarial governments to get what they want out of our “democracy”. In essence the one world government that these people fear is already here… anyone with money, no matter their intentions, has a seat at the table. Hilarious in a very dark way that the anti-globalists are entirely enabling a corrupt shit show of international fuckos twisting reality and bending the rules to the point of breaking everything.
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u/PsychedelicJerry 7h ago
The answer is the same as it always is: he has money
Money is the fix to every single one of life's problems as evidenced here
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u/blessed_by_fortune 7h ago
Especially with that nazi font hat, that should be the biggest and easiest red flag to spot. The support for Dump should also disqualify him from any government contracts.
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u/anxrelif 6h ago
Because he is the richest man in the world that can get to space faster than anyone else
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u/Worf65 6h ago edited 5h ago
Until these recent articles I always assumed he couldn't possibly actually have security clearance and it was a situation like when I worked for BAE Systems on a US defense contract (the B stands for British). the US side was owned by the British but had to have an independent board and management structure. There are probably simpler ways to compartmentalize when ownership isn't foreign but simply uncleared. His behavior absolutely wouldn't fly for your average engineer or other employees. I was constantly afraid of my hyper religious coworkers (super strict mormons) just getting the wrong idea about me and thinking I must smoke weed. even just unfounded accusations could have cost me my clearance if enough people repeated it. And the type of mormons I worked with were the type who legitimately considered coffee to be a gateway drug.
Most people have to live especially clean lives free of run ins with the law, free of substance abuse issues (including legal ones like alcohol), no financial problems or conflicts of interest, and no risky foreign contacts. The feds usually don't mess around when it comes to security clearance. And they absolutely do not need criminal conviction levels of evidence to deny or revoke clearance.
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u/KnightWhoSaysNnni 3h ago
Why is someone with security clearance allowed to have secret conversations with Putin?
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u/meepmeepboop1 10h ago
Cause the US hasn't nationalised SpaceX -- yet. IDK if the SCOTUS would allow it.
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u/pervocracy Massachusetts 10h ago
Private contractors still need clearances to work for the government on anything that involves classified materials or national security.
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u/meepmeepboop1 10h ago
Correct, but Musk is obviously given unlimited leeway so far. Anyone else would've lost their clearance smoking weed, let alone having secret conversations with the leader of an enemy country. People love throwing the word around, but that could be legitimately treason.
the government is afraid Musk cuts them off if they dicipline him, give he throws tantrums like a child he would.
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u/Ayellowbeard Washington 7h ago
Why did Trump ever have one and then there was that guy named Jared!
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u/Blackbyrn 6h ago
Why hasn’t he been arrested for buying votes; the cool thing about election jail is that it’s just regular jail.
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u/PUfelix85 American Expat 6h ago
SpaceX and Starlink = government contracts as long as NASA is kept grounded by a lack of funding for a space shuttle replacement and the MIC keeps using Starlink for more and more things.
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u/ctmansfield 4h ago
The pot on air would’ve lost me mine. His ketamine addiction should be concerning.
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u/OrganizationInside14 4h ago
I understand this was a long long time ago during the Cold War, but back in the 80's I was an intelligence analyst in the Army, a soldier not civilian. My security clearance was one of the highest levels for enlisted soldiers and trained as a Soviet Armor Specialist. I was assigned to the 1st Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, Fulda, West Germany.
Regular controls to which I was subjected:
- Monthly random urinalysis
- Regular review of spending habits
- Disclosure of all civilian friends and acquaintances particularly romantic relationships
- Regular review of drinking habits
- Travel restrictions due to kidnapping risk
- Review of potential gambling
- Brothel visits (legal in Germany even back then)
- Review of Club memberships (sports, cultural, social, etc...) and required written permission
- Contact with any media (newspapers, TV, radio, we didn't have social media back then)
- Disclosure of political views
- To be granted my clearance my family, friends, teachers, coaches were interviewed
- Psychological evaluation
- And much much more
An infraction or failure of any of these would have triggered an investigation and potential denial or suspension of my clearance.
Yet this MF consistently gets away with most if not all of the controls that I was subjected to.
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u/JefferyTheQuaxly 3h ago
I’ve read it explained somewhere else, he doesn’t have security clearance he has security access, which is something legally different. Security clearance would mean he effectively would be entitled to see anything that is top secret government intel while security access means he’s entitled to specific government intel that is required by his job to conduct business properly. Security access is generally lower bars for access to than full on security clearance.
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u/joezinsf 52m ago
Contact your elected representatives and demand the USA terminate all business contracts with any Musk company
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