Pennsylvania 'Iron Mountain' mine drawing the attention of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency
CHERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. (KDKA) -- An old limestone mine operated by Iron Mountain that's located just north of Pittsburgh in Butler County is drawing the attention of Elon Musk.
The mine is located in Cherry Township and its cool temperature and low humidity levels are supposed to provide optimal and secure conditions to preserve items.
The United States government's Office of Personnel Management (OPM) uses Iron Mountain to process and store paperwork when federal workers retire and now Musk is taking aim at the use of the facility.
What Musk said about Iron Mountain
"We're told that the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000," Musk said while speaking from the White House's Oval Office earlier this week. We're like, well, why? Why is that? Well, because all the retirement paperwork is manual on paper. It's manually calculated, then written down on a piece of paper, then it goes down a mine... there's a limestone mine where we store all the retirement paperwork," he said, referring to Iron Mountain.
"The speed at which the mine shaft elevator can move determines how many people can retire from the federal government," Musk went on to say. "And the elevator breaks down and then.. nobody can retire. Doesn't that sound crazy?
"There's like 1,000 people that work on this," Musk said. "So I think if we can take those people and say... instead of working in a mine shaft and carrying manila envelopes to boxes in a mine shaft, you could do practically anything else and you would add to the goods and services of the United States in in a more useful way."
Disputing Musk's comments
Multiple employees with the OPM who wished to remain anonymous told the Butler Eagle that Musk's comments are inaccurate, stating that the facility doesn't have an elevator and that the processing of retirement paperwork for federal employees varies on a case-by-case basis.
"No two retirements are the same," one employee said. "It changes depending on the agency they worked for, their position, and numerous other factors."
What's in the Iron Mountain mine?
The mine houses more than just federal paperwork and KDKA-TV has taken viewers inside the mine on several occasions in the past.
The facility also stores some of the nation's most priceless treasures and studios from Hollywood rent space to store the original master copies of classic movies.
The mine also stores millions of historical photographs, glass negatives, and original recordings from artists including Elton John. Countless businesses and organizations also use the facility to store their digital data on servers.
