Illegal drugs should be legal, so it doesn't bother me... the only thing that bothers me is that only the richest can get away with it.
If Elon even denies it (because lets be honest, everything in this story has multiple verification, is repeated from different sources and is consistent with Musk’s own behavior), it creates opportunity for blackmail or worse.
People are VERY easy to blackmail.
Again, if you deny or lie about it, you essentially self-blackmail.
Read the article:
>"Illegal drug use would likely be a violation of federal policies that could jeopardize SpaceX’s billions of dollars in government contracts. Musk is intrinsic to the value of his companies, potentially putting at risk around $1 trillion in assets held by investors, tens of thousands of jobs and big parts of the U.S. space program...In addition to violating federal contracts, any kind of illegal drug use would break company policies at both SpaceX and Tesla, and would raise questions about Musk’s executive role at the publicly traded Tesla, where the board has a duty to shareholders to oversee management.”
Elon is taking federal contractor funds, a very serious deal, and doing cocaine and more with it.
He’s a literal national security threat.
People get security clearances pulled over this.
He doesn't exactly hide this.
The greater issue is he's flaky, whimsical, and readily takes cues from rando's trending on twitter. Not the reliable rock steady rational actor one images national security should rest upon.
again, ANYONE else doesn’t pass security clearances over this.
They've entered in contracts with him, they've had the chance to fully read all that is public about Elon in advance, and now they've got the tiger by the tail.
I doubt a third party (Russia?) threatening to tell on Elon to the DoD about his cocaine | LSD | mushroom | et al. habits would do squat as far as blackmail goes, they very probably already know, if not they're kind of incompetent.
He's delivering private launch facilities and Elon having loose lips is a greater threat than Elon being threatened with being outed about drugs unless he discloses DoD "need to know" secrets he has access to.
Ultimately he has value to DoD and they have bank problem;
if you owe $100 to the bank, you have a problem, if you owe one billion to a bank, the bank has a problem
He's not ANYONE else.
( again, not a fan, not a devoted Elon hater - this is just the pragmatic assessment )
The moment Elon denies doing cocaine, he is then subject to blackmail. Everyone on the board knows he does hard drugs, so now he can be exploited.
It’s that simple.
If I know you’re lying, I can manipulate you.
Elon Musk publicly and falsely accused someone of being a pedophile and skated on it. Donald Trump publicly bragged about being able to sexually assault women, and it got him more votes than he lost. I guarantee you nothing will happen to anyone named on the Epstein list. People at this level of power can't effectively be blackmailed, because social (and most legal) consequences simply don't apply to them. Certainly not over something as banal as drug use.
This isn't the 1940s, everyone already assumes that every rich powerful asshole is doing cocaine every week off the naked back of a new kept boy they rented from Thailand with mafia money. No one cares.
It sounds like you have a security clearance and either really like the rules or feel really constricted by them and that's why you're so angry about this.
Also he aligned with the Saudis over the Twitter deal. They seem to be able to kill who they want with zero repercussions. He has a lot of kids.
Main Street logic and norms do not apply to the super rich.
Exactly like this:
> "Illegal drug use would likely be a violation of federal policies that could jeopardize SpaceX’s billions of dollars in government contracts. Musk is intrinsic to the value of his companies, potentially putting at risk around $1 trillion in assets held by investors, tens of thousands of jobs and big parts of the U.S. space program... In addition to violating federal contracts, any kind of illegal drug use would break company policies at both SpaceX and Tesla, and would raise questions about Musk’s executive role at the publicly traded Tesla, where the board has a duty to shareholders to oversee management.”
That's basically saying- "you have nice companies here... it would be a pity if they were taken from you or went bankrupt".
Elon Musk's drug behaviour (whatever it is) will not change. But people can stop talking about it, if people are happy with what Elon does for them.
The only place where it should remain outlawed is situations where it could lead to accidents like driving heavy machinery, etc.