NPR has a thinly sourced report that two of Musk’s boys have access to networks containing nuclear weapons data. The boys are Luke Farritor, a 23-year-old former SpaceX intern and Adam Ramada, a Miami-based venture capitalist.

Two sources who have access to the network have told NPR that the two have had accounts on the network for about two weeks. Having an account is not the same as having access to classified information, which depends on need to know. It’s a first step, though.

Prior to their work at DOGE, neither Farritor nor Ramada appear to have had experience with either nuclear weapons or handling classified information.

I love understatement.

A spokesperson for DOE flatly denied the report. In February, Energy Secretary Chris Wright specifically denied that DOGE people would have access to the networks.

The first network, known as the NNSA Enterprise Secure Network, is used to transmit detailed “restricted data” about America’s nuclear weapons designs and the special nuclear materials used in the weapons, among other things. The network is used to transfer this extremely sensitive technical information between the NNSA, the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories, and the production facilities that store, maintain and upgrade the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

The second network, known as the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet), is used by the Department of Defense to communicate with the Department of Energy about nuclear weapons. SIPRNet is also used more broadly for sharing information classified at the secret level, information that “could potentially damage or harm national security if it were to get out,” explained a former career civil servant at the Department of Defense who requested anonymity to discuss classified systems.

Something to be aware of is that in the nuclear weapons Restricted Data system of classification, “secret” information has similar requirements for handling “top secret” information in the National Security/Defense system.

In the article, Hans Kristensen suggests that some of the information might be necessary for considerations of the budget. I’ll remind everyone that what Musk and his boys are doing is probably illegal. Given their ignorant slashing elsewhere, there’s no reason they need to have access to Restricted Data. None.

Photo: Workers stand inside a special chamber at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The chamber is used to test new conventional explosives used to detonate advanced nuclear weapons designs, and the data produced from such experiments is considered restricted. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Cross-posted to Lawyers, Guns & Money