Should the industry be anxious, or excited? Interviews with a series of officials suggest a potent mix of both — a familiar feeling for many executives, as they watch his one-man war on whatever he perceives as an obstacle to his will.
On paper, the billionaire founder of SpaceX and Trump confidant has no official responsibility for space, and has said he must recuse himself from NASA budget decisions.
But Musk — so unable to restrain himself on social media that he bought a whole platform — has stirred controversy with a string of pronouncements on space since Trump’s election, calling NASA’s moon mission a “distraction,” promising a crewed mission to Mars and claiming the Biden administration stranded two astronauts on the International Space Station.
Musk has also advocated for de-orbiting the International Space Station early — a job that, as it happens, will fall to his own company. (This was shortly after being called a liar by a former ISS astronaut for his claims against the Biden administration.)
At the 40th Space Symposium event last week in Colorado, DFD put this directly to a number of space-industry executives. Their reactions were varied — and hinted at the perils of getting crosswise with someone who’s both a rival and a gatekeeper for your future.
Musk’s lack of an official position is enough for Tim Crain, chief technology officer of Intuitive Machines, which builds moon landers as part of a NASA-funded program.
“I don’t whipsaw on everything Elon Musk posts and publishes,” he said, to DFD. “What actual policy comes out of that?”
Instead, Crain said he was waiting for NASA administrator nominee Jared Isaacman to take his place as the agency’s leader.
Others have more open reservations about Musk’s influence, though they’re hesitant to put them on the record in public.
Isaacman has close connections with SpaceX, including partnering with the company on a spacewalk that Isaacman performed. “It remains to be seen” to what degree Isaacman will distance himself from Musk, said one space industry official, granted anonymity to discuss Musk.
Executives at companies that directly compete with Musk seem particularly watchful for any signs that the owner of the world’s top space company is influencing the awarding of contracts.
“There’s a lot of eyes on him, so he’ll have to play by the rules. Otherwise, people will be pretty quick to call foul,” said Peter Beck, CEO of SpaceX competitor Rocket Lab, speaking at Space Symposium, when asked if he was concerned about Musk’s influence.
The CEO of rocket maker ULA, SpaceX’s main competitor for national-security launches, Tory Bruno, offered a similar answer to a similar question, speaking in March in Washington: “Our expectation is that the procurement process continues to be fair and balanced and truly values competition,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to see it trend towards any kind of monopoly positions for any one provider or the other.”
There’s one big counterweight to all the anxiety: Musk loves space. Getting humanity off the Earth, and dedicating immense resources to that goal, have been constant threads when he talks about his ambitions in business and policy.
So even as some space leaders feel trepidation about Musk throwing his weight around, others would eagerly welcome an American space policy in line with Musk’s goals. (Many, arguably, feel both at once.)
A Mars mission, for example, could benefit any number of space companies — like those already building private space stations, which would help give humans the extensive time in space they’d need to train up.
A crewed Mars mission “will create a lot of new opportunities for companies like us” said Max Haot, CEO of space station company Vast, speaking last week at Space Symposium. “If you’re going to send hundreds of people to Mars, the first trip to space they should make is not to Mars. They should spend time in space.”
Of course, Musk, the richest man on Earth, may not need NASA and its yearly budget of $25 billion to accomplish his dreams at all — meaning that, when it comes to ambitions like going to Mars, Musk could turn out to be a one-man space agency.
“There is a scenario that even without government support, they’re going,” said Haot, theoretically propelling profits forward for a host of Mars-related space industries.
