Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, said the federal government required him to undergo random drug testing for a year after he smoked weed on Joe Rogan’s podcast in 2018, adding that the “whole of SpaceX” was impacted.
During an appearance on the “Full Send podcast,” released Thursday night, Musk said that he got “a lot of backlash,” including from SpaceX competitors, because weed isn’t legal on a federal level and SpaceX has federal-government contracts.
“The consequences for me and for SpaceX were actually not good,” the tech billionaire said on “Full Send,” adding that he hadn’t expected so much criticism. The 2018 interview with Rogan — which went viral at the time — took place in California, where marijuana is legal for both medical and recreational use.
“I had to have like random drug tests and stuff after that, to prove that I’m not like a drug addict,” Musk said, adding that the tests were required by the federal government. “They drug tested me for everything, and randomly. It wasn’t like ‘pick a day.’ I had like a whole year of random drug tests.”
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t just me but the whole company, the whole of SpaceX had to have random drug tests,” Musk continued. It’s unclear exactly how many workers this affected, but SpaceX had around 6,000 employees in early 2019.
Under the Drug-free Workplace Act of 1988, workers at any company that receives a federal contract of $100,000 or more are prohibited from using or distributing drugs in the workplace, and the firm must have a drug-free workplace policy.