--- title: "We’d Like to See the Chain of Custody on Elon Musk’s Pee After the Drug Allegations" description: "There could well be someone out there whose job it is to collect Elon Musk's urine for government drug testing — and we have questions." date: "2024-01-10" modified: "2024-01-10" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/elon-musk-drug-test-custody" categories: - "Elon Musk" - "Future Society" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "drugs" - "elon musk" - "SpaceX" - "urine" --- # We’d Like to See the Chain of Custody on Elon Musk’s Pee After the Drug Allegations ![There could well be someone out there whose job it is to collect Elon Musk's urine for government drug testing — and we have questions.]() *\Image: Antonio Masiello via Getty / Futurism\* As the fallout from reports of [Elon Musk's alleged drug use]() continues, one columnist has made a very salient point: that there may well be someone whose job it is to collect the boss's piss. In a [*Bloomberg* op-ed](), former Goldman Sachs banker and current "Dealbreaker" editor Matt Levine recounted one of the more easily overlooked points of this bizarre plot: that Musk is, per his attorney and his own prior recollections, subjected to random drug tests. That would seem to mean that there's an employee or group of employees responsible for collecting the urine to be tested. "Imagine," the columnist muses, "being the SpaceX employee in charge of randomly drug testing Elon Musk." "Tiptoe into Musk’s office after his night out not getting into Berghain and say 'hey Mr. Musk it’s time for your random drug test, here’s a cup,'" Levine continues. "What if he says no? What if he hands you back the cup and it is just full of cocaine? What are you going to do about it? You work for him and he is not, like, a chill and understanding guy." Levine went on to point out that Tesla also has anti-drug policies as well, which could indicate, theoretically at least, that there's also someone who's supposed to collect urine samples from the man himself at that company as well. Though he doesn't continue down the train of thought, the columnist's [yellow-hued]() thought experiment would logistically entail a chain of custody for the billionaire's pee, but because we're not government piss test experts we don't know who would receive that liquid nuclear football between the sample first being expelled and it ending up in a contractor's lab somewhere. As with many Muskian gambits, we're left with more questions than answers. Does the urine get passed off to a courier who takes it to a federal office and have it shipped to NASA headquarters in DC, or does it get sent to CalTech's Jet Propulsion Lab, which NASA co-funds, because that's closer? Would there need to be *another* courier to pick it up, and who would check in the precious cargo after that? And the glaring, number one question: how do we know it's really Musk's urine that ultimately ends up in the lab? In his famously tyranical work environments, isn't it conceivable that he's simply providing someone else's micturition, which indeed tests clean even if he *has* been doing drugs? It's gross, but because of Musk's immense government contracts, it's also a billion-dollar question. Between the government and SpaceX, it's hard to tell which is the more secretive and least likely to respond to sensitive media queries of any nature, much less one regarding pee. Nevertheless, we've reached out to both to ask for "any information about how samples are taken, transported, and tested," and will definitely update this story if someone deigns to provide us with a response. **More on pee:** [*Scientists Have Been Studying Your Pee and They Finally Have Answers*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()