Elon Musk on Thursday said that his company SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft “immediately” because of threats by President Donald Trump to cancel government contracts with Musk’s businesses.
But hours later, Musk said, “Ok, we won’t decommission Dragon,” after a X user urged him to “cool off and take a step back for a couple days.”
Musk’s about-face on his social media site X came amid an escalating war of words with Trump that began after the Tesla CEO criticized the major tax bill being pushed by the Republican president.
“In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Musk wrote.
Dragon is the only U.S. option for delivering crew to and from the International Space Station.
Musk’s initial tweet about decommissioning Dragon responded to a Truth Social post by Trump, who wrote, “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.”
“I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!” Trump added.
An X user with the handle @Fab25june on Thursday evening asked Musk to reconsider.
“This is a shame this back and forth,” @Fab25june tweeted at Musk. “You are both better than this. Cool off and take a step back for a couple days.”
Musk quickly answered: “Good advice. Ok, we won’t decommission Dragon.”
Joe Wiesenthal, co-host of Bloomberg’s Odd Lots Podcast, screen-grabbed the exchange in a tweet of his own, and quipped, “An account with 184 followers has achieved de-escalation between two of the most powerful people in the world.”
How much of a de-escalation, how long it will last, and how serious Musk is about Dragon’s fate, one way or the other, remains to be seen.
Musk was blistering in his tweets aimed at Trump and his so-called One Big, Beautiful Bill on Thursday. And it was not clear if he would hold his fire against either in the coming days.
Nor is it clear that Trump will forgive him, or refrain from lashing out against Musk, who until last Friday had been one of his top government advisors, and who spent more than a quarter billion dollars supporting Trump’s 2024 White House campaign.
“Without me, Trump would have lost the election,” Musk tweeted earlier Thursday.
“Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” added Musk
“Such ingratitude,” he wrote.
A Dragon capsule brought NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams back to Earth in March after the pair were stranded for months at the ISS by a Boeing Starliner capsule.
More recently, a Dragon craft delivered 6,700 pounds of crew supplies, science investigations, and equipment to the ISS on April 22.
There are seven people aboard the ISS currently on a mission being led by 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 upon the President’s vision for the future of space.”
“We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President’s objectives in space are met,” Stevens wrote.
SpaceX is one of the biggest federal contractors. Since 2008, SpaceX has received more than $20 billion in contracts from NASA, the Air Force and other agencies.
According to SpaceX’s website, “The Dragon spacecraft is capable of carrying up to 7 passengers to and from Earth orbit, and beyond.”
“It is the only spacecraft currently flying that is capable of returning significant amounts of cargo to Earth, and is the first private spacecraft to take humans to the space station,” the company says.
SpaceX has been developing a replacement for Dragon.
In November, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the company would be flying Dragon for six to eight more years.
The company is currently testing its Starship rocket, which exploded for the third time in its May launch.
