SpaceX founder and Trump megadonor turned “special government employee” Elon Musk waved a chainsaw around and continued to accuse the Biden administration of abandoning American astronauts during a madcap surprise appearance on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference Thursday.
Musk, who took the stage alongside Newsmax host Rob Schmitt on the second day of the right-wing confab, immediately brought on a second guest — Argentinian president Javier Milei — who handed Musk the bejeweled power tool as a gift, apparently a reference to the figurative chainsaw Musk is taking to the federal government. Milei has repeatedly wielded a chainsaw in public appearances in Argentina.
After Milei left the stage, Musk engaged in a running back-and-forth with the television host touching on a number of topics. They included his journey from political neutrality to being one of President Donald Trump’s most fervent financial backers, his concerns over his own security, and his desire to tour the U.S. gold depository at Fort Knox in Kentucky.
Schmitt asked the SpaceX and Tesla boss what it was like “inside the mind of a genius.” Musk hesitated before replying: “My mind is a storm, so ... it’s a storm.”
Schmitt quizzed Musk about his claim that the Biden administration purposefully chose to allow a pair of U.S. astronauts to be “stranded” at the International Space Station after their Boeing spacecraft was de-orbited without them rather than allow Musk’s SpaceX to get credit for bringing them home.
Musk said he “absolutely” believes Biden abandoned the astronauts and claimed the decision to leave them at the space station was entirely due to politics.
“We obviously could have brought them back sooner, but they didn’t want to do what anyone who supported President Trump wanted,” he said.
Musk’s accusation has been repeatedly contradicted by the astronauts at the space station, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, who are set to return to Earth next month after being in space since their launch from Cape Canaveral last June.
Earlier in the day, the billionaire got into an ugly spat on his social media platform X with a former ISS commander, European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who slammed Musk’s claim that Biden purposefully left Williams and Wilmore in space.
After Musk posted a clip of himself making the same false claim during his joint interview with Trump on Fox News Tuesday, Mogensen wrote: “What a lie. And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media.”
The SpaceX founder viciously attacked the astronaut in return, writing in response: “You are fully r*****ed.”
Mogensen clapped back with a fuller explanation.
“You know as well as I do, that Butch and Suni are returning with Crew-9, as has been the plan since last September. 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,” he said.
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In August, Nasa had said it would return in February on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, before a delay was announced at the end of the year. The change, the agency said, gave both SpaceX and Nasa teams the time to complete processing on a new Dragon capsule that was set to arrive to the company’s processing facility in early January.
Recently, Nasa said it may bring Williams and Wilmore back a little sooner than anticipated — but on a previously flown Dragon. That change will give SpaceX the time to complete the new spacecraft’s interior build and perform final integration activities.
Julia Musto contributed to the reporting
