SpaceX Finally turns a profit (and WOW it has a lot of satellites)

[JayJay]

@e7alr

There is a regulatory reason that a company might only recruit US citizens. Satellite work often involves classified projects on behalf of DOD and the intelligence community. The workers involved require security clearances. Only US citizens can hold security clearances. And there are certain countries that fall into the category of being controlled by governments with goals counter to the interests of the United States. Said countries are know to have active intelligence collection efforts targeting the US and it’s activities and technology.

This I will have to research more…I only looked at ITAR…I did not look at any relevant security clearances laws.

However, I have a hard time believing that EVERY job at SpaceX requires the type of clearances only US citizens can get…and so therefore a broad policy where they won’t even consider hiring asylees/refugees is not going to fly.

In fact, since Musk apparently has hired permanent residents, obviously not every job at SpaceX requires a security clearance (since you are correct…ONLY US citizens can get such clearances. There is a more limited access…indeed called a Limited Access Authorization…that a non-citizen can get…but LAAs are very narrow in scope).

And Musk didn’t use the clearances argument…he used ITAR. And ITAR explicitly calls asylees/refugees “US persons”.