On June 5, American President Donald Trump and his former ally, Elon Musk, had a public showdown on the Internet. The war of words led to Trump threatening to deprive Musk of federal contracts.
“The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to end government subsidies and Ilon contracts. It always amazed me that Biden didn’t do that!” – Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.
For his part, the SpaceX owner responded with the following tweet:
“In light of the president’s announcement to cancel my government contracts, SpaceX will immediately begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft”.
Implications for the space industry
Some experts and political observers predicted from the beginning that Trump and Musk’s political alliance would be short-lived. However, they were surprised by how quickly their relationship deteriorated. It is now certain that the White House’s decision to withdraw its support for the candidacy of Jared Isaacman as the new NASA administrator is due to Musk’s “ousting”. Isaacman himself has already confirmed this. It is possible that it could be the last straw for the head of SpaceX, who, after that, stopped holding back and came down with a stream of accusations against the American president.
All of this raises a legitimate question about the potential implications of this rupture for the space industry. SpaceX is currently NASA’s key contractor. Musk’s company performs more launches than the rest of the world combined, and at prices that are less than its competitors. Thanks to the Falcon 9 rocket and the Dragon spacecraft, the U.S. maintains a presence on the ISS. To abandon them would mean the virtual death of the project. Moreover, it was SpaceX that was awarded the contract to build the USDV vehicle designed to safely vault the station from orbit.
SpaceX is also responsible for a critical part of the Artemis program, which aims to return humans to the Moon. While NASA also has a contract with Blue Origin to build a lunar lander, its development is many years behind SpaceX. This means that if the U.S. wants to have any chance of beating China in the new lunar race, it will need Musk’s company.
Similarly, SpaceX is vital to the U.S. military. It is one of the two main contractors that deliver national security payloads into orbit. Meanwhile, the other operator, United Launch Alliance, has faced difficulties in passing the certification of its new Vulcan rocket. This forced the U.S. Space Force to begin shifting missions from Vulcan to Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. Given SpaceX’s reliability and responsiveness, the military’s decision seems perfectly logical. SpaceX’s Starlink Internet service is also crucial for the Pentagon, which has ordered its version of the constellation called Starshield.
All of this means that if the federal government does sever contracts with SpaceX, it would be suicide for the U.S. space industry. Such a decision would set it back decades and give China primacy on the world stage, making it the No.1 space power.
But given Trump’s penchant for impulsive decisions at this point, it is impossible to guarantee that all of this will remain within the confines of a verbal altercation, and he will not risk sacrificing American space for revenge against his former ally.
