Elon Musk hasn’t ordered all federal workers to be drug tested

Thousands of civil servants have been fired since President Donald Trump began his second term a month ago. Billionaire entrepreneur and presidential adviser Elon Musk has spearheaded efforts to reduce the federal workforce.

Social media posts claim Musk has added a new directive for all federal workers to undergo drug screenings.

"So, Elon Musk just ordered all federal workers to be tested for drugs and those that fail have 30 days to retest clean or be fired," a Feb. 16 Threads post said. 

We saw similar claims on X. "Elon Musk just dropped a bombshell: anyone with a federal paycheck has 30 days to pass a drug test or get fired," a Feb. 13 X post said. The X post was repeated on Threads.

The Threads posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads and Instagram.)

Musk has not issued such a policy. We searched news reports and Musk’s X account and found no evidence that he directed all federal workers to undergo drug screening. The claim likely originated as a misinterpretation of Musk’s response to a Feb.1 X post by Joshua Steinman, who served as a cybersecurity adviser to Trump during his first term. 

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Steinman called on the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, an advisory group tasked with slashing government spending that’s associated with Musk, to implement a policy of mandatory drug tests for all federal workers. Musk responded: "Great idea."

Although Musk’s comment suggests he may support such a policy, he has not issued a drug-testing directive for federal workers. Some social media users pointed out Musk’s own public drug use, including smoking cannabis during a 2018 live podcast.

It’s also doubtful Musk could give such an order. Although Musk has become the unofficial head of DOGE, the White House clarified Feb. 17 in court filings that he has no official role with the department and described him as a senior adviser to the president. "Like other senior White House advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself," the federal court filing said. "Mr. Musk can only advise the President and communicate the President's directives."

Regardless, a drug testing policy for federal employees has existed since at least 1986 when President Ronald Regan instituted it by executive order. The federal government can drug test workers as a condition for hiring, through random selection or based on a reasonable suspicion of drug use that includes cocaine and methamphetamine. And although 24 states and the District of Columbia permit recreational cannabis, the U.S. government tests for marijuana because it’s still federally banned. 

Refusing to take a drug test or finding drugs in a federal employee’s sample could lead to a range of actions, including firing. In 2023, the Department of Health and Human Services estimated that federal agencies collect roughly 275,000 urine samples annually.

We rate the claim that Musk ordered all federal workers to be drug tested False.