Elon Musk Trying to Scrap NASA's Moon Program

Victor Tangermann
Mon, January 6, 2025 


SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is calling for NASA to ditch its Artemis program, arguing that the "Moon is a distraction" and that "we're going straight to Mars" instead in a recent tweet — and directly contradicting the agency's long-established plans.

In a separate tweet on Christmas Day, Musk accused the space agency's Moon program of being "extremely inefficient as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program."

The broadsides once again highlight the mercurial entrepreneur's obsession with establishing a city on Mars, a starry-eyed vision he wants to see facilitated by his space company's next-generation heavy-lift rockets.

And while the idea of ditching the Artemis program — which was officially formed by Musk's new ally, president-elect Donald Trump, in 2017 — seems bafflingly counterintuitive and shortsighted, his emboldened calls to skip the Moon can't be dismissed given his immense new influence.

Musk now holds huge sway not only over the fate of his many businesses, but the political landscape as well, most recently helping Trump win the election and even playing a major role in the torpedoing of a US Congress funding bill last month.

Consequently, the South African billionaire has been put in charge of a so-called "Department of Government Efficiency" to excise $2 trillion from the national budget. Whether this advisory group will be able to take aim at the Artemis program remains to be seen.

Nonetheless, now that Musk has a significant foothold in Washington, DC, NASA's efforts to land the first astronauts on the surface of the Moon before the end of this decade could be in serious trouble — or at least look dramatically different after some high-powered meddling.

What's perhaps most likely, at least in the short term, is that instead of scrapping NASA's plan, the Trump-Musk alliance could make significant adjustments instead, perhaps by ditching the agency's expensive and inefficient Space Launch System in favor of SpaceX's reusable Starship or Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket, as Ars Technica's Eric Berger suggests.

One unknown is NASA's incoming administrator Jared Isaacman, a billionaire and private astronaut who has been to space twice with the help of SpaceX — but who so far has expressed support for NASA's existing lunar gameplan.

In a statement Isaacman tweeted following his nomination, the billionaire proclaimed that "Americans will walk on the Moon and Mars and in doing so, we will make life better here on Earth."

That vision directly contradicts Musk's desire to aim our sights exclusively at Mars, a striking difference in tune that will be fascinating to watch play out.

Will Trump's administration and Isaacman bend the knee, calling off upcoming Artemis missions — or will it be a matter of appeasing Musk's plans while simultaneously pursuing American boots on the Moon?

Chances are, we'll have to wait quite some time until we get a definitive answer. The Artemis program has formed an intricate web between NASA and its private contractors, SpaceX included, which likely can't be ripped apart or burned down overnight.

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