Elon Musk talks 'bogus' COVID-19 test ahead of SpaceX launch
SpaceX and NASA are scheduled to send four astronauts to the International Space Station on Saturday
SpaceX founder Elon Musk floated concerns about faulty coronavirus tests on Twitter less than two days ahead of his space exploration company's rocket launch with three NASA astronauts.
Musk tweeted late Thursday that he had taken four COVID-19 tests under the direction of one nurse, and two of the four came back positive.
"Something extremely bogus is going on," Musk tweeted. "Was tested for covid four times today. Two tests came back negative, two came back positive. Same machine, same test, same nurse. Rapid antigen test."
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He later responded to several commenters, telling one he had the symptoms of a "typical cold" with "nothing unusual so far."
"A good PCR test should identify if I have the cov2 spike proteins, although I have heard some low accuracy numbers for those too," he wrote in another. PCR tests have a higher degree of accuracy, but results can take a week or longer, while antigen tests require less than an hour.
SpaceX, in partnership with NASA, is expected to send Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japenese astronaut Soichi Noguchi to the International Space Station as part of SpaceX's first operational crew mission called Crew-1, according to the company's website.
The launch is expected to take place at 7:49 p.m. EST on Saturday. A backup launch is scheduled for 7:27 p.m. EST on Sunday. A live webcast streaming the launch will begin approximately four hours before takeoff.
NASA didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from FOX Business.
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he spoke to Musk two days before he tweeted about his test results during a Friday press briefing and explained that NASA's policy for employees who test positive for COVID-19 is to "quarantine and self-isolate."
"We anticipate that that will be taking place," Bridenstine said. "We're looking to SpaceX to do any contact tracing that is appropriate. Of course, if there are changes that need to be made, we will look at those, but it's very early right now to know if any changes are necessary at this point. We just don't know."