Tech honcho Elon Musk has targeted US government and regulators while advocating for the growth of American businesses. On Sunday, in response to a user expressing concerns about SpaceX being compelled by the government to capture seals for a compliance experiment, Musk quipped, “The regulators made us kidnap seals twice! So crazy.”
Earlier in the morning, Musk said on X that he was ready to reveal to the public an alleged scheme where his company SpaceX was “forced by the government to kidnap seals.”
“Tomorrow, 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,” Musk said in his post on X.
Musk’s remark was in response to a clip from Saturday in Pennsylvania, where he mentioned having a “bunch of nutty stories” about government overregulation. One such story involved SpaceX being required to assess the likelihood of its Starship rocket hitting a whale or shark . “SpaceX had to do this study to see if Starship would hit a shark. And I’m like… it’s a big ocean. There are a lot of sharks. It’s not impossible, but it’s very unlikely. So we said, ‘Fine, we’ll do the analysis. Can you give us the shark data?'” he said.
Donald Trump, who has been endorsed by the billionaire, said he would make him the “Secretary of Cost-Cutting” for the federal government, if he is reelected.
“We’ll have a new position: Secretary of Cost-Cutting. Elon wants to do that, and we have incredible people. He’s running a big business. He can’t just say, ‘I think I’ll go into the Cabinet.’ Other people can. He can’t, but Elon’s a little bit different in that sense,” Trump said in a recent interview.
Recently as part of his campaign trail for Trump, Musk in Pennsylvania said how Space X faced a $140,000 fine from the EPA for using drinking water to cool down a launch pad.
“I’ll tell you like a crazy thing, like we got fined $140,000 by the EPA for dumping fresh water on the ground. Drinking water. It’s crazy. I’ll just give you an example of just how crazy it is. And we’re like, ‘Well, we’re using water to cool the launch pad during launch. You know, we’re going to cool the launch pad so it doesn’t overheat. And in excess of caution, we actually brought in drinking water, so clean, super clean water,’” Musk said.