Elon Musk
Credit: Reuters File Photo
SpaceX founder Elon Musk has claimed that the company was compelled by the US government to 'kidnap seals'. He said on X, "The regulators made us kidnap seals twice! So crazy."
Musk, while pushing for American businesses to grow, was responding to a user who expressed worries about SpaceX being forced by the US government to capture seals for an experiment on compliance.
Musk, earlier in the morning on his social media platform, had said he was ready to reveal to people an alleged scheme where his company was forced by the government to kidnap seals.
"...I will tell the story of how SpaceX was forced by the government to kidnap seals, put earphones on them and play sonic boom sounds to see if they seemed upset," he said on X.
Musk's response on X comes after he mentioned in Pennsylvania on Saturday that he had a 'bunch of nutty stories' about government regulation. The innovator went on to detail how SpaceX was required to assess the likelihood of its Starship rocket hitting a whale or a shark. Musk noted that given the size of the ocean, it was not an impossibility, but was a highly unlikely scenario.
He also complained about being fined $140,000 by the United States Environmental Protection Agency for SpaceX using drinking water to cool down a launch pad.
Donald Trump has announced that if he wins he will make Musk -- who has endorsed the Republican -- the 'Secretary of Cost-cutting' for the federal government.
Legal experts who have studied federal ethics rules said Musk’s interactions with the federal government are so broad it might not be possible for him to serve as a prominent adviser to the president without creating major conflicts of interest.
“It is entirely reasonable to believe that what he would bring to this federal audit is his own set of biases and grudges and financial interests,” said Kathleen Clark, an ethics lawyer who has served as an adviser to the District of Columbia Attorney General’s office.
Musk, in recent years, has particularly attacked the Securities and Exchange Commission, which in 2018 charged him with securities fraud for a series of false and misleading tweets related to taking Tesla private. As part of a later settlement with the SEC, he stepped down as Tesla’s chair and Tesla paid a $20 million fine.
If Musk were to get a senior advisory role in a Trump administration, regulators might have to consider how taking action against one of Musk’s companies might affect their budgets or regulatory authority, even if he did not directly push those agencies to back down, Clark said.
(With NYT inputs)