SpaceX has contracts to do all sorts of work for the United States government, from putting Toyotas on the moon to plunging the International Space Station into the sea. The company’s work includes secret projects for the U.S. military, but CEO Elon Musk wouldn’t know much about that — he’s not allowed into those rooms at corporate HQ.
Access to that kind of classified info requires security clearance, and Musk does actually have that: He’s held Top Secret-level clearance since 2022. Specific projects, however, can require additional addenda on top of the generalized clearance. SpaceX’s attorneys, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, have advised against Musk asking for those additional programs — for fear that he may lose even the clearance he has due to his loose lips, frequent meetings with foreign officials, and drug use:
The SpaceX lawyers began analyzing the risks of seeking a higher security clearance for Musk after the Journal reported in June of last year about Musk’s use of ketamine, according to one person familiar with the review. The lawyers and executives concluded that if SpaceX sought a higher security clearance, it would risk Musk being turned down, or worse, losing the top-secret clearance he already has.
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Musk’s current top-secret clearance gives him access to some national-security secrets, but he lacks special authorizations that the government requires of most SpaceX employees who work on classified programs, according to the people familiar with the matter. Those employees—more than 400—have permissions for what is known as “sensitive compartmented information,” the government’s term for need-to-know secrets about how intelligence is collected and where it comes from, one of the people said. A smaller number of SpaceX employees have access to secrets the government deems even more sensitive called special access programs.
Musk’s top-secret clearance, without those authorizations, doesn’t entitle him to access certain information about SpaceX’s spy satellite program, called Starshield, which offers satellite hardware and services to national-security agencies, the people said. He isn’t allowed to enter most SpaceX facilities where classified work is done and discussed, and he rarely is privy to classified elements of cargo that his rockets blast into space, such as sensors and other hardware attached to spy satellites.
Musk’s company launches all matter of equipment into space for the U.S. government, and Musk isn’t allowed to know what most of it is — a limitation not shared by the CEOs of Boeing and Lockheed Martin, who the Journal states both have higher-level “sensitive compartmented information” access.
Of course, The Journal offers this could all change on a dime when Donald Trump enters the white house next month, through the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, but there’s no guarantee that it will. Musk has reportedly not exactly gotten along with the Trump camp, with his habit of playing up his own importance apparently grating on the nerves of Trump’s team. Trump himself has even told audiences he “can’t get rid of” Musk, no matter how much he tries.
The cringily-named DOGE may be the regulatory equivalent of handing your younger cousin an unplugged Playstation controller so they feel like they’re playing — as a body not created by Congress, its powers are limited to advising the executive branch on decisions to make. It’s entirely possible that it exists to make its members feel important while keeping them away from anything they can really break (or annoy). If so, additional security clearances may not come with the territory.
The fact that Musk can’t know what goes to space on his own rockets is good fun, but one has to wonder how much he’d really risk by asking for further security clearances. After all, NASA has a proud history of relying on the brains of folks just like Musk.
