The dispute between US President Donald Trump (78) and tech billionaire Elon Musk (53) could have significant consequences for the US room ride. Musk announced – at least in the meantime – that his company Spaceex Immediately start to take the Dragon space capsule out of operation.
At Trump’s words, he referred to the fact that many billions could be saved if you cancel the government contracts of Musk’s companies. In fact, according to the Reuters news agency, the contracts between the US government and SpaceX have a value of almost $ 22 billion and affect several space programs.
A few hours after his announcement, Musk obviously thought differently. In a post, an X-user had asked for both Trump and Musk to calm down and to gain some distance to their dispute. The SpaceX boss replied: “Good advice. Ok, we won’t shut down Dragon.”
US space ride is dependent on Dragon room ferry
The SpaceX spaceship is currently practically indispensable for the USA, to bring astronauts into space. Boeing The spaceship has developed Starliner, but the first flight with people on board the crew had to remain on board the ISS space station because there were technical problems. Starliner finally landed safely-but the astronauts stuck on the ISS for months before returning with a SpaceX capsule.
Also Amazon-Founder Jeff Bezos (61) has its own space company with Blue Origin – but so far only made short trips to space. After the end of the Space shuttle program, the United States had been dependent on Russian spaceships for years until Dragon was finished.
Musk and Trump’s dispute flared around the tax and budget law driven by the US President. Musk demands stronger spending cuts and tightened his attacks in the past few days. Critics from Musk have long warned that the United States had made itself dependent on its company.
Musk’s electric car company Tesla also only got the consequences of the dispute between the US President and his former right hand. The The car maker’s share crashed more like never before yesterday Thursday – Within a day, the securities lost more than 14 percent and thus about $ 153 billion in the market value.