Elon Musk looks on, during the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (not pictured) at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., Feb. 13, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Elon Musk and European astronaut Andreas Mogensen exchanged barbs online after Musk suggested in a recent interview that two NASA astronauts were left on the International Space Station “for political reasons.”
The public spat on X came in response to remarks Musk made Tuesday during a joint interview with President Donald Trump on Fox News. The pair was asked about NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who have been on the space station for the past eight months, after their Boeing spacecraft ran into problems on its first crewed test flight.
“They were left up there for political reasons,” Musk said, insinuating that the Biden administration chose to keep the astronauts in space for longer than necessary.
Mogensen, who in 2015 became the first Danish citizen to fly in space, took aim at Musk’s unsupported claim, posting: “What a lie. And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media.”
Things quickly turned ugly, with Musk calling Mogensen an “idiot” and using a derogatory term.
“SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago,” Musk wrote. “I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused. Return WAS pushed back for political reasons. Idiot.”
Mogensen, who himself flew to and from the space station aboard a SpaceX rocket and capsule, responded 13 minutes later, saying he has “long admired” what Musk has accomplished at SpaceX.
“You know as well as I do, that Butch and Suni are returning with Crew-9, as has been the plan since last September,” he said on X, referring to NASA’s plan to fly Wilmore and Williams back to Earth with two current space station crew members. “Even now, you are not sending up a rescue ship to bring them home. They are returning on the Dragon capsule that has been on ISS since last September.”
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore, left, and Suni Williams pose inside the hatch connecting Boeing’s Starliner to the International Space Station on
NASA
Mogensen was commander of the space station from September 2023 to March 2024 — his most recent stay at the orbiting outpost.
Neither the White House nor NASA immediately responded to requests for comment.
Retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who commanded the space station in 2013, also weighed in on the dispute, reposting comments he first made on X on Feb. 14.
“Suni and Butch have never been ‘stranded’ in space,” Hadfield wrote. “They’re prepared and committed to the mission, like all professional astronauts. Suni’s Space Station commander, they’re doing spacewalks, working hard on behalf of NASA and all partners, having the time of their lives.”
The spat comes as Musk’s role as one of Trump’s top political advisers has brought fresh scrutiny to his penchant for spreading false and misleading information. Most recently, Musk has spread a variety of misleading claims about fraud and spending throughout the U.S. government.
Wilmore and Williams launched to the International Space Station aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft in June 2024, intending to spend about a week there as part of the test flight.
However, the capsule encountered several issues, forcing the astronauts to remain at the space station longer than planned. In the end, NASA opted to bring the Starliner back to Earth in September with no one aboard.
NASA, under the Biden administration, decided to call on SpaceX to bring Wilmore and Williams back to Earth. Their flight home had been scheduled for this month, but was later postponed to no earlier than late March. The reason, NASA said, was to allow more time to “complete processing” on a new SpaceX spacecraft that will ferry four new crew members to the space station.
That flight, known as Crew-10, is expected to carry NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov, and Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi to the space station.
Once they arrive, Wilmore and Williams, along with NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, will depart the station on a separate Dragon capsule.
New and departing crews typically overlap in a handover period, during which astronauts can exchange information about ongoing experiments, maintenance projects and other protocols.
Musk also said Thursday that the space station should be taken out of orbit and that his recommendation was to do it in two years, rather than NASA’s plan to deorbit the facility by 2030.
“It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility,” he wrote. “Let’s go to Mars.”