Neil deGrasse Tyson on Elon Musk Smoking Weed: 'Let the Man Get High'

Neil deGrasse Tyson spoke candidly about Elon Musk smoking marijuana on a podcast to TMZ Tuesday.

"Can't they leave him alone? Let the man get high if he wants to get high," the astrophysicist said, but added, "He's got to obey the SEC, clearly, but if he doesn't want to obey the SEC, then he's got to have a private company, then he can do what he wants. But he took his company public, so there's an accountability there, to the public trust."

That being said, Tyson called himself "Team Elon." "He's the only game in town," he told TMZ. "He's the best thing we've had since Thomas Edison."

Musk appeared on the podcast, Joe Rogan Experience, Thursday. The host offered him what he said was "marijuana inside of tobacco," but thought he couldn't have any "because of stockholders." "It's legal, right?" The Tesla CEO asked, and Rogan confirmed it is where they were, in California.

"How does that work? Do people get upset at you if you do certain things?" Rogan asked. Musk took a puff of it and didn't answer the question.

Tyson came up during the CEO's interview on the podcast when the conversation turned to cell phones. He, like Musk, doesn't use a case for his device. The astrophysicist flips his phone between his fingers "like a soldier would do with his rifle," according to Rogan. Soldiers did that so "when [the rifle] goes to drop, they have it in their hand, they catch it quickly," Tyson explained on the podcast in August.

While he sees nothing wrong with Musk smoking, he doesn't recommend smoking marijuana in space. "In space now, many things will kill you, so if you do anything to alter your understanding of what is reality, that's not in the interest of your health," Tyson explained to TMZ. "If you want to get high in space, you lock yourself in your cabin and don't come out because you could break stuff inadvertently."

Tyson had finished taping an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert when the publication spoke to him. He said President Donald Trump's Space Force isn't "a crazy thing" on the talk show.

"Many people are thinking, 'We didn't have a Space Force before and now we're going to have [one].' We have a Space Force. It's called the United States Space Command and it's under the auspices of the Air Force," he told Colbert. "The United States Space Command is responsible for all the space activities the military has engaged in. … To have a Space Force, you're just sliding all these activities under this new umbrella."