Monkeys Set Off for the Afterlife: Mission to Mars Begins.

Elon Musk is once again publicly threatening people who disclosed information about his extensive influence over Trump’s administration. How he addresses the issue of leaks in his companies might be a sign of what awaits the federal government."I look forward to pursuing those in the Pentagon who are deliberately spreading false information in the New York Times," Musk wrote hours after The New York Times reported that the Pentagon plans to inform the president's top adviser, Donald Trump, about the tensions between the U.S. and China, including possible war planning. "They will be found" (POLITICO reported that at a briefing at the Pentagon, issues related to the threats posed by China would be raised, but these would not be classified war plans. It is unclear whether this was the initial plan).Musk's statement, posted on his social media site X, reiterates his strategy of intimidation and legal action against individuals who leak information to curb internal sabotage in the companies of this billionaire in the technology sector, such as Tesla, SpaceX, and X.These moments indicate how he may address the issue of leaks in the government.Here’s how he deals with leaks.Musk’s Molecular HuntIt’s not always easy to tackle leaks when you can’t identify who disclosed them.After Musk bought the company, Twitter's code was leaked online and published on GitHub - a website for sharing project codes among software developers. At that Time, it was not clear at all who revealed the code.Therefore, in March 2023, the social network filed a copyright infringement complaint against GitHub, and the information was removed.However, Twitter could not identify the individual who leaked the code and sought messages "about the author and the users who posted, uploaded, downloaded, or altered data" related to the source code leak.Several months later, Twitter's management, including its CEO Linda Yaccarino, announced that they wanted to stop leaks and asked employees to help find all those who are leaking information within the company."If you suspect that any employee is not maintaining the confidentiality of Twitter's information, please report it by submitting a request," reads an internal email that was publicly disclosed by a former executive. "If you need recommendations or want to schedule training for your team, write to [email protected]."Secret CodesWhen Musk wants to find out who revealed secrets, he can create a trap "with the canary."In 2022, Musk revealed on X how he bribed a Tesla employee who had disclosed private company information to the press over a decade ago: the company would send out 'on view' identical emails, but each email was actually encrypted with one or two spaces between the sentences.Emails, which he claimed were his invention, effectively created a fingerprint for each recipient that could be traced if the messages were sent or published by the press.Using metadata or unique markers to identify leakages is not unusual. The federal government in 2017 stated that it was partially supported by documents obtained by The Intercept that "were folded or bent" to determine which employee disclosed them, and printed documents could contain unique identifiers.People have found ways to evade these traps to securely leak information to the press. Some took photos of internal communications on other devices. Or they switched to encrypted messengers like Signal to communicate with journalists.In CourtWhen a former Tesla employee allegedly stole confidential information, mixed it with lies, and revealed it to the press, the company quickly filed a lawsuit against him in 2018. The lawsuit claimed that Tesla employees had already identified who leaked by the time the complaint was filed through an internal investigation in which the man confessed to writing software that transmitted large volumes of data externally.But Musk felt that simply threatening a lawsuit was as powerful a tool for silencing many distrustful employees.Tesla warned its employees in 2019 that if they disclosed information, they could face a lawsuit from the firm, which had already filed several lawsuits against employees alleged to have taken company information to competitors, CNBC reported at the time.And in December 2022, after the Twitter source code leak, the company informed through an internal letter that ‘if you clearly and purposefully violate the NDA you signed upon joining, you accept responsibility to the full extent of the law, and Twitter will immediately seek damages,’ as technology journalist Zoe Schiffer noted in an email she obtained.Employees in Musk's companies have largely remained silent in recent years, especially after he hired people loyal to the companies' missions and to himself. Now there is a possibility that this same principle might be applied in the federal government, a few months after the Trump administration filled some federal agencies with followers of this technology billionaire.