Even among the most unhinged X users, few can boast of having had an online meltdown on such an interplanetary scale.
But on Sunday, Elon Musk took to his own social media platform to post an unusually lengthy commentary on how SpaceX’s flagship Mars program is being “smothered by a mountain of government bureaucracy” under the Biden administration.
It’s that red tape, he maintains, that threatens to scupper his ambitions of one day colonizing the Red Planet.
“The fundamental existential question is whether humanity becomes sustainably multiplanetary before something happens on Earth to prevent that, for example nuclear war, a supervirus or population collapse that weakens civilization to the point where it loses the ability to send supply ships to Mars,” he wrote.
“While I have many concerns about a potential Kamala regime, my absolute showstopper is that the bureaucracy currently choking America to death is guaranteed to grow under a Democratic Party administration. This would destroy the Mars program and doom humanity,” he went on. “It cannot happen. Your help would be much appreciated. This is a fork, maybe the fork, in the road of human destiny.”
Musk’s weekend tirade might have been prompted by comments from his preferred presidential candidate the day before, with Donald Trump telling the crowds at a rally in North Carolina on Saturday that if he wins, he’ll “talk to Elon” and “get those rocket ships going.”
Backing for further space exploration under a second Trump presidency wouldn’t be unprecedented, with the Republican nominee having previously pushed NASA to put another team on the moon before 2024, as well as setting up the United States Space Force service during his first term.
With the latest national polling averages showing the Democratic candidate inching ahead, the Trump campaign would now appear to be eyeing the heavens as something of an untapped political battleground—although Kamala Harris isn’t exactly an amateur in extraterrestrial matters either.
In fact, the vice president has served as chair of the National Space Council since 2021, earning high praise from various experts for pushing almost 40 countries to sign up to the Artemis Accords—a series of peace agreements that will govern future state activities among the stars.
