Why Musk doesn’t have access to SpaceX’s biggest government secrets

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The payloads SpaceX launches into the heavens for the U.S. military and spy agencies are usually treated as a government secret, shared only with select employees at the rocket company who hold special security clearances.

Elon Musk, its founder and chief executive, isn’t one of them. As SpaceX deepened its ties with the national-security agencies in recent years, the company’s lawyers advised senior executives not to seek a higher security clearance for Musk that would give him access to details about sensitive programs SpaceX is involved in, according to people familiar with the matter. The reason, these people said, was that Musk would have had to answer questions from the government about his contacts with foreign nationals and drug use previously reported by The Wall Street Journal.

In internal discussions, the lawyers and executives posited scenarios in which Musk might inadvertently disclose secrets to foreign officials with whom he regularly speaks, the people said. The Journal reported in October that Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022. His current “top-secret" clearance took years for him to obtain following his public use of marijuana on a 2018 podcast.

SpaceX’s national-security business was rapidly growing at the time. 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.