President Donald Trump on Tuesday suggested that the two U.S. astronauts stranded for months on the International Space Station will soon be retrieved by none other than his new head of the Department of Government Efficiency: Elon Musk.
Trump offered up the billionaire SpaceX owner for the new galactic task in a social media post that blamed former President Joe Biden for the ordeal after NASA in December announced yet another delay in the mission to return two veteran astronauts home.
“I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to ‘go get’ the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration,” Trump wrote Tuesday on his Truth Social platform. “They have been waiting for many months on @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!”
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It remains unclear whether Musk himself would go along for the trek, as the president implied in his post, or if he would assemble a crew to follow through on Trump’s otherworldly ask of his ally. Musk, who also owns X and is notoriously active on the platform, has yet to weigh in on the new development.
The pair have grown increasingly tight over the last several months, with Musk even spending the weeks following the 2024 election at a $2,000-a-night cottage at the president’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort.
However, some observers have suggested that cracks in their close relationship have started to emerge. Musk was not included as part of Trump’s announcement last week of a joint venture investing up to $500 billion for infrastructure related to artificial intelligence by a new partnership formed by Oracle, SoftBank and OpenAI, whose owner Sam Altman is a longtime rival of Musk's.
NASA announced last month that the stranded pair – astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams – would remain in space until at least late March.
But since returning to the White House last week, Trump has unleashed a dizzying barrage of executive orders and directives across federal agencies, in many cases sending Washington – and local governments, organizations and individuals nationwide – into chaos.
Musk is working to launch into orbit from his South Texas launch site known as Starbase the Starship and Super Heavy booster, the most powerful launch vehicle ever built, with the ultimate goal of reaching Mars.