Security concerns dogging Musk are unusual given his company's national security role

so last week we talked about a government rule that requires a car company to report whenever a car gets into a crash while it is in self-driving mode uh crashes like this one on Thanksgiving Day in 2022 when a Tesla in San Francisco that was in full self-driving mode inexplicably stopped on the highway and caused an eightc car pile up thanks to this rule that you have to report it when a self-driving car crashes Tesla had to report that crash to the government now that the CEO of Tesla is a kind of a co-president elect

though um Reuters reporting this quote Trump team wants to scrap car crash reporting rule that Tesla opposes for the low low low price of financing one presidential election Tesla may have bought itself a US government that among other things no longer requires Tesla to report when its self-driving software causes wrecks and hurts and kills people but Tesla's interests aren't just in the United States arguably Tesla is more a Chinese car company than it is an American car company the biggest Tesla Factory the factory that makes more of its cars than any other plant the single

Factory which makes roughly half the cars it makes globally is a huge one in Shanghai and Tesla right now is trying to get approval from the Chinese government to operate its self-driving car technology in that country as well Tesla's CEO Elon Musk really wants to keep the Chinese government happy and he really wants to build yet more factories in China he's really invested in having Chinese workers manufacturing his cars right down the street from his huge Shanghai Tesla Factory that he's already got up and running musk is building another huge $200 million Tesla battery Factory

again to employ Chinese workers while Donald Trump appears to have not gotten what he wanted out of the near government shutdown this weekend Elon Musk does appear to have successfully maneuvered republicans in Congress into cutting out of the government funding bill a provision that would have thrown regulatory roadblocks in the way of his continued massive investment in Chinese manufacturing for his car company we reached out for comment we have not heard back we'll let you know if we do but the idea that we have just gone through this near-death experience right with another Trump government

shutdown potentially happening right before Christmas even before Trump technically gets back into office and we did it specifically so his billionaire pseudo co-president could protect his relationship with the Chinese government and get more of what he wants in terms of Chinese manufacturing I mean it's it's unsettling enough from a you know National Security perspective from a national sovereignty perspective but it's all the more unsettling given report reporting in recent days about the ways in which our own government has found Elon Musk to be a potential National Security risk The Wall Street Journal for example reported

that while there are several hundred employees at SpaceX musk's company uh who have security clearances for what's known as sensitive compartmented information Elon Musk is not one of the people who has that level of clearance and that's not normal for companies doing this kind of sensitive work with the government the journal reports that the CEOs of other similarly situated companies they've all been able to get this kind of security clearance but not Elon Musk if you're wondering why consider this reporting from Kirsten grind Eric Lipton and Sher Frankle at the New York Times quote Elon

Musk and his rocket company SpaceX have repeatedly failed to comply with federal reporting protocols aimed at protecting State Secrets including by not providing some details of his meetings with foreign leaders according to people with knowledge of the company and internal documents quote concerns about the reporting practices and particularly about musk himself have triggered at least three Federal reviews the defense Department's office of Inspector General opened a review Into the matter this year the Air Force and also the pentagon's office of under secretary of defense for intelligence and security separately initiated reviews last month as in

November the Air Force also recently denied musk a highlevel security access exitting potential security risks quote in the past three years nine different countries including in Europe and the Middle East nine different countries have raised security questions about musk in meetings with us defense officers it seems clear from the reporting that some of these security concerns may have to do with reports about Elon musk's drug use but there's also these continuing concerns that he has not disclosed all of his meetings with foreign leaders or what was talked about in those meetings and that is required

if you want to maintain a security clearance with the US government the question for all of us broadly is why would a person refuse to disclose what's happening at meetings with foreign leaders and foreign governments what are you talking about with foreign leaders that you don't want the US government to know about and what does it mean to have somebody who's seen as that kind of a security risk essentially single-handedly directing the actions of the US government during a presidential transition joining us now is New York Times investigative reporter Eric lton Mr lton thanks very

much for your time tonight I really appreciate you being here thanks for having me so help me understand um the um I guess how surprising it is how unexpected it might be in the abstract for somebody who is the head of a company like SpaceX for example uh to not have the kind of security clearances that Mr musk has either not been able to obtain Ain or has actively been denied there's something called the special Access program that is a higher level of classification that SpaceX wanted for Elon Musk that would allow him to participate

in some of the most sensitive discussions around you know for example right now SpaceX is helping the national reconnaissance office build a spy satellite Network around the globe um in orbit there he's also you know in charge of National Security launches putting some of the most sensitive spy satellites and missile tracking equipment into orbit and so the special Access program would have given him the ability to participate in some of the most classified discussions around these programs and that was denied by the Air Force he does have top secret clearance but he does not have

special Access program and that that's unusual for a a CEO it's it's something that doesn't really happen um for a CEO at that level for there to be questions about special Access program ability for someone at that level and so you know but the fact of the matter is that SpaceX is incredibly involved in the National Security and spy system right now it is it is not only a launch company it is actually helping build a spy satellite Network and also helping you know create the satellites that are used for missile tracking for missile defense

programs the United States so it it's an incredibly important company in the National Security of the United States at the moment an incredibly important company for the National Security of the United States whose CEO can't get top level security clearance to be allowed access to some of what his own company is doing it just it seems strange C can can I ask you about um other countries having reported security concerns about Mr musk to us defense officials do we know anything about the nature of those concerns that they reported I mean the the most specific

thing is from a colleague that worked on the story with us and you know that would had to do with Israel had some concerns about whether or not you know musk could be trusted to maintain State secrets and was not communicating with potential adversaries information sharing information that perhaps he had access to and th that was one of the number of countries that was shared with us that that raised a concern about musk and whether or not you know basically could he be trusted I mean the you know the the it's very unusual to have

a CEO of a of a major defense contractor be so engaged in foreign business operations directly um as you discussed with respect to China and the extent of his operations in China is and and the business interest that that China and the leverage to to some extent that China therefore has over him and his company is unusual and I think that that makes Folks at at the Air Force uncomfortable New York Times investigative reporter Eric Lipton thank you very much I know this is uh this is a this is a particularly um uh technical area

of reporting it's really hard to report on uh security clearances and intelligence concerns because of how secret it all is it's been really Illuminating to have you and your colleagues working on this thank you so much for helping us understand it thank you e