As Democrats reel from their extraordinary defeat in last week’s presidential election, some lawmakers are already cooking up another Russia Hoax against Elon Musk.
In a letter sent by Senate Armed Services Committee Chair and Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed and New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen to Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Pentagon’s Inspector General Robert P. Storch, the pair claim that his supposed relationship with the Kremlin “pose[s] serious questions” about his “reliability as a government contract and a clearance holder.”
The letter states:
We write with serious concern regarding open source reporting detailing conversations between
Russian officials and the CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk.On October 25, the Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Musk had multiple, high level conversations with Russian President Vladmir Putin as early as 2022, and sustained contact with high-level Russian officials, including Putin’s deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko.
At the same time, Mr. Musk asserts that he holds a Top Secret level security clearance. These relationships between a well-known U.S. adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. government funding, pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk’s reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder.
We urgently call upon the U.S. government to open an investigation up to and including a determination by the senior debarment official of the Department of Defense, consistent with section 4654 of title 10 United States Code, to determine whether this behavior should force a review of Mr. Musk’s continued involvement in SpaceX’s varying contracts with the Department of Defense and
Intelligence Community.
The letter goes on to suggest that Musk’s ownership of SpaceX somehow poses a risk to national security:
As you know, space equipment is at the crux of the communications that underpin our most sensitive military and intelligence operations. Russia’s ambitions in the space domain pose a direct threat to U.S. national security.
In May of this year, the Pentagon confirmed Russia’s deployment of a counter-space weapon, “presumably capable of attacking other satellites in low-earth orbit.”
This is in addition to the sensitive communications and intelligence collection that are enabled by space-based assets – and could put U.S. national security in grave danger if exploited.
Communications between Russian government officials and any individual with a security clearance have the potential to put our security at risk. That is why there exists a strict reporting regime for any such foreign contacts.
SpaceX is deeply integrated into our defense and intelligence space programming. Mr. Musk is a prime contractor on the Space Force’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, is building a government-exclusive Starshield satellite network for the Space Force, and holds a $1.8 billion dollar classified contract with the National Reconnaissance Agency (NRO).
Although the letter will ultimately lead absolutely nowhere, such bizarre suggestions underpin the desperation felt by Democrats and their growing hatred for the world’s richest man.
Having brought back freedom of speech to the world’s most important social media network, Musk also became a vital surrogate for Donald Trump’s campaign and bankrolled it to the tune of $150 million.
Earlier this week, Trump announced that Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy would lead the Department of Government Efficiency, which will seek to carve out needless bureaucratic layers and waste within the federal government.
