SpaceX has leverage on NASA. That ups the stakes for Trump's fight with Musk – Australian Broadcasting Corporation
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By Norman Hermant
7.30
Topic:Space Exploration
Mon 9 Jun 2025 at 6:35pm
In the past week, the partnership between Elon Musk and Donald Trump has imploded in spectacularly public fashion. (Reuters: Brandon Bell/Pool)
As Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump traded increasingly acrimonious social media posts last week, space scientists such as Dr Simeon Barber looked on with particular concern.
"I was amazed and dismayed when I saw this unfolding," the senior research fellow at The Open University told 7.30.
Mr Trump and Mr Musk's social media spat started with a disagreement over the US president's so-called 'big beautiful' budget bill before it got personal and even featured claims about the Epstein files being bandied around.
But also, and crucially, contracts for Musk's SpaceX were in the president's crosshairs.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump traded posts over the US government's contracts with SpaceX. (Reuters: Daniel Cole)
"The easiest way to save money in our Budget … is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts," Mr Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
Mr Musk responded on X that SpaceX "will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately".
US President Donald Trump has lashed out at Elon Musk on Truth Social. (Supplied: Truth Social/@realDonaldTrump)
He later posted Dragon was safe and wouldn't be decommissioned — but the threat illustrated the stakes of the dispute for America's space program.
NASA used SpaceX's Dragon capsule to bring back astronauts earlier this year. (NASA/Keegan Barber/ Handout via Reuters)
The Dragon capsule, developed with the help of government contr acts, is an important part of keeping the space station running.
SpaceX is the only US company capable right now of transporting crews to and from the space station, using its four-person Dragon capsules.
Boeing's Starliner capsule has flown astronauts only once; last year's test flight went so badly that the two NASA astronauts had to hitch a ride back to Earth via SpaceX in March, more than nine months after launching last June.
But it's not just getting cargo and crews to the space station. SpaceX also dominates the launch of US military and commercial satellites, accounting for 87 per cent of the American orbital launches in 2024.
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has become a workhorse, with its boosters landing vertically — allowing them to be reused and significantly reducing launch costs.
And America's space strategy is increasingly focused on SpaceX's much larger Starship rocket.
"A lot of NASA's missions, the future planning, is starting to include using Starship," Dr Barber said.
"Putting humans on the moon again using Starship as lander, and Trump has also been talking about going to Mars, and Starship will be central to those plans as well."
It appears increasingly unlikely that Musk and Trump will reconcile.
Dr Barber says SpaceX has even more leverage due to a proposed 25 per cent cut to NASA's budget.
"That would make it smaller as an institution and more reliant on external partners and those would be coming from the commercial sector. And SpaceX was a big part of that," Dr Barber said.
Since Elon Musk posted a reprieve for the Dragon spacecraft, there's been no more word from Mr Trump about SpaceX government contracts.
Dr Barber hopes both sides have stepped back from the brink.
"International agencies collaborate to do space exploration. It's a big endeavour. Australia is looking at getting on board with the ISS. These things take decades to plan, and you need some kind of stable underpinnings and foundation to build upon.
"When that can all be knocked down with a few random tweets in half an hour, it really makes it difficult to plan for the future."
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