Elon Musk dared – DARED – to have a puff of loud on the Joe Rogan podcast last night. That should be totally fine! There’s nothing wrong ethically or morally with having a little cheeba, and while inhaling the jazz cabbage is totally legal on the state level in California, marijuana is still criminalized federally. And since Elon is not just the CEO of Tesla, but also SpaceX, which has a couple of large government contracts, that may reportedly be a bit of a problem.
From CNBC:
The U.S. Air Force has begun looking into Elon Musk apparently smoking weed on a podcast, a source at the military branch told CNBC on Friday.
Musk’s SpaceX provides services for the Air Force, with multiple high-value contracts. Marijuana use is prohibited for someone with a government security clearance, Fox Business reported, and is the central issue in the Air Force’s inquiry.
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SpaceX has already flown a number of flights for various parts of the United States Department of Defense, and the Air Force itself awarded a $130,000,000 contract to SpaceX for the launch of a classified satellite aboard its Falcon Heavy rocket.
And since Elon is the CEO of SpaceX, he probably needs a security clearance for that sort of thing. Not to mention that space rocket and intercontinental ballistic missile technology is extremely similar.
Oh, and there are some other laws that may come into play here as well, just off the top of my head. There’s the Drug Free Workplace Act, for instance. I’ll let Federal News Radio explain what that one is:
Both federal employees and contractors are still subject to the Drug Free Workplace Act, which says that companies that receive a federal contract of $100,000 or more and organizations that receive a federal grant of any size must maintain a drug-free policy.
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So what will happen to Elon and SpaceX? To be totally honest, it’s not clear that anything will happen at all. Maybe even just a slap on the wrist. Cancelling massive contracts and whatnot is extremely silly considering the guy took like two puffs of a joint. Not to mention that cannabis is, of course, legal on the state level in California, and it should be legal everywhere.
Anyway.
While you’re here, Tesla’s share price is down over six percent today:
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And that’s probably not because of the devil’s lettuce on the Joe Rogan show, but because it was announced that two major Tesla executives were leaving today. Head of human resources Gabrielle Toledano said she wouldn’t be returning from a leave of absence from the company, and Chief Accounting Officer Dave Morton quit less than a month after starting at Tesla, according to Bloomberg.
Tesla’s trying to stop some of that bleeding late in the day today, announcing a slew of new promotions in a company blog post, including a promotion for Jerome Guillen as President, Automotive. Guillen has been at Tesla for eight years, and before that, he was at Daimler’s Freightliner division.
But will it be enough? Tesla’s share price is down over $100 in the past month alone, as Musk hasrepeatedlycreatedproblemsforhimself.
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And oh right, now there’s this whole Air Force thing.
A request for comment from SpaceX was not immediately returned.
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