Elon Musk threatens NASA’s Dragon exit

As President Donald Trump and Elon Musk argued on social media on Thursday, the world’s richest man threatened to decommission a space capsule used to take astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station.

After Trump threatened to cut government contracts given to Musk’s SpaceX rocket company and his Starlink internet satellite services, Musk responded via X that SpaceX “will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft



immediately”.

It’s unclear how serious Musk’s threat was. But the capsule, developed with the help of government contracts, is an important part of keeping the space station running. NASA also relies heavily on SpaceX for other programmes, including launching science missions and, later this decade, returning astronauts to the surface of the moon.

SpaceX is the only US company capable right now of transporting crews to and from the space station, using its four-person Dragon capsules.