Musk's fight with Trump puts SpaceX deals at risk

About $22 billion of SpaceX's government contracts are at risk and multiple US space projects could face dramatic changes in the fallout from Elon Musk and President Donald Trump's explosive feud on Thursday.

- JOEY ROULETTE

The disagreement, rooted in Mr Musk’s criticism of Trump's tax-cut and spending legislation that began last week, quickly spiralled out of control. Trump lashed out at Mr Musk when the president spoke in the Oval Office. Then in a series of X posts, Mr Musk launched barbs at Trump, who threatened to terminate government contracts with Mr Musk’s companies.

Taking the threat seriously, Mr Musk said he would begin “decommissioning” SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft used by Nasa.

Hours later, however, Mr Musk appeared to reverse course. Responding to a follower on X urging him and Trump to “cool off and take a step back for a couple of days,’ Mr Musk wrote: “Good advice. Ok, we won't decommission Dragon.”

Still, Mr Musk’s mere threat to abruptly pull its Dragon spacecraft out of service marked an unprecedented outburst from one of Nasa’s leading commercial partners.

Under a roughly $5 billion contract, the Dragon capsule has been the agency’s only US vessel capable of carrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS), making Mr Musk’s company a critical element of the US space effort.