Elon Musk recently claimed that US regulators made SpaceX "kidnap seals twice". During an interview on the Lex Friedman podcast, Musk said that SpaceX was forced by the government to "kidnap a seal, strap it to a board, put headphones on the seal, and play sonic boom sounds to it." Musk went on to say that the experiment was aimed to understand how sonic booms affect the local seal population. He also shared a picture of a seal strapped to a board wearing headphones. The test, which was conducted twice, purportedly shows a seal calmly listening to the sonic boom of a rocket launch. Tomorrow, I will tell the story of how SpaceX was forced by the government to kidnap seals, put earphones on them and play sonic boom sounds to see if they seemed upset — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 20, 2024 Sonic booms are generated when rockets hit the sound barrier and create shock waves. The billionaire tech mogul said that US regulators wanted to know if seals were, in any way, impacted by the loud sound of the rocket launch and claimed that the local seal population in the area has increased in the last few years. At a town hall for Trump in Harrisburg, Musk also reportedly said that SpaceX was asked to do a study to determine if a Starship would hit a shark, which was then followed by a similar study on whales.
