SpaceX to decommission Dragon over Trump threat

Elon Musk Thursday said his business Spacex will start the downgrade Dragon spaceship “Immediately” because of threats from the president Donald Trump To cancel government contracts with Musk companies.

But a few hours later, Musk said: “OK, we don’t demonstrate Dragon”, after an X user urged him to “cool off and take a step back for a few days.”

Musk on his face on his social media site X came in the middle of an escalation War of words with Trump that started after Tesla The CEO criticized the main tax bill pushed by the Republican President.

“In the light of the president’s declaration on the cancellation of my Government contracts@Spacex will immediately start the downgrading of his dragon spacecraft, “wrote Musk.

Dragon is the only American option to deliver the crew to and since International space station.

Musk’s initial tweet on Dragon downgrade responded to a Post social post By Trump, who wrote: “The simplest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate the subsidies and government contracts from Elon.”

“”I have always been surprised that Biden did not do it! “Added the president.

An X user with the @ fab25june handle Thursday evening asked Musk to reconsider.

“It’s a shame in both directions,” tweeted @ fab25june in Musk. “You are both best than that. Refroy and take a step back for a few days.”

Musk quickly replied: “Good advice. OK, we don’t get rid of Dragon.”

Joe Huisenthal, co-host of the Bloomberg Odd lots “Odd lots”, has exchanged the exchange in his own tweet, and joked, “an account with 184 followers reached a de-escalation between two of the most powerful people in the world”.

How many de -escalations, how long it will last and how serious musk is on the dragon fate, in one way or another, remains to be seen.

Musk blister in his tweets for Trump and his so-called Big and Magnificent Bill on Thursday. And it was not clear if he would hold his fire against one or the other in the coming days.

It is not clear that Trump will forgive him, or will refrain from unleashing against Musk, who until last Friday had been one of his best government advisers, and who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars supporting the White House campaign in 2024 of Trump.

“Without me, Trump would have lost the elections,” Musk tweeted earlier Thursday.

“DEMS would control the room and the Republicans are 51 to 49 years old in the Senate,” added Musk

“Such ingratitude,” he wrote.

A dragon capsule brought back astronauts from NASA Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams on Earth in March after the couple was blocked for months at ISS by a Boeing Starliner capsule.

More recently, a dragon craftsmanship has delivered 6,700 pounds of crew supplies, surveys and scientific equipment at ISS on April 22.

There are seven people aboard the ISS currently on a mission led by the Russian cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin. Three NASA astronauts are part of the crew.

NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens, in a tweet after Musk’s announcement, wrote: “NASA will continue to execute the president’s vision for the future of space.”

“We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure that the objectives of the president in space are achieved,” wrote Stevens.

SpaceX is one of the biggest federal entrepreneurs. Since 2008, SpaceX has received more than $ 20 billion in NASA, Air Force and other agencies.

According to the SpaceX website, “the Dragon spaceship is able to transport up to 7 passengers to and from the terrestrial orbit, and beyond.”

“It is the only spacecraft that is currently flying which is capable of making large quantities of cargo on earth, and is the first private spaceship to take humans to the space station,” said society.

SpaceX has developed a dragon replacement.

In November, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said the company would pilot Dragon for six to eight years more.

The company is currently testing its Starship rocket, which exploded for the third time when it was launched in May.