Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, on Thursday said his company SpaceX would begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft after he engaged in an extraordinary public fallout with Donald Trump who had threatened to cancel government contracts with Musk’s businesses.
“In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately,” Musk posted on the social media platform X, which he owns.
A few minutes earlier Trump had posted on Truth Social – the media platform that he owns – that he might cancel huge lucrative contracts with Musk’s businesses, which include the SpaceX company that is building a fleet of rockets.
Weird how he imagines Drump gives a fuck about space.
Aaaaaand…this is why you don’t outsource this kind of shit to private interests. At any point, they can just pick up their ball and go home. Now all the money they invested in SpaceX just gets flushed down the drain. The government winds up with nothing to show for it.
Which is strange because in my world where the govt pays for my work they own all my work as I make it.
It’s “weird” how the big boys get different rules
That’s because…technically…the government mostly provides contracts to SpaceX to take their stuff to and from orbit. They’re basically paying for a service…not investing in SpaceX’s product development. Even though that is an indirect result of giving them those contracts.
It’s like hiring a landscaper to do your lawn. They come with their own equipment, so even though they bought it using the money you pay them…you don’t own any of it. They do.
Sounds like corruption 101
The American space program has literally always run this way. NASA decides mission and requirements, private industry sells them rockets they usually then modify and perform their own checks and maintainence on.
The problem is that that system is predicated on having a functioning aerospace industry with multiple competitors you can go to instead of just one company with a viable product thanks the ravages of neoliberalism.
That’s not remotely how contracts work.
In the normal world, yes. All bets are off when everyone involved ignores laws and manages by vibes.
Breaking contract law does not currently seem to be in the oligarchs’ interests at this point.
The federal government can just national security/eminent domain take that shit.
And set up a conflict between the bourgeoisie and the Trump administration.
I’ve said this a long ago and kept getting downvoted… I’m all for kicking Elon by making fun of the CyberTruck and calling everything be touches shit, but Tesla and SpaceX have some of the smartest engineers in the world and they made a lot of good technology that would be too sad to throw away because a Nazi capitalist owned the companies.
Normalize the idea of nationalizing Tesla and SpaceX, we can actually get there.
And a lot of it paid for by the government at least space x. Tesla not so sure about there are many dumb designs with Tesla. Like allowing people to burn in them because they can’t get out.
Now that would be HILARIOUS
Illegal aliens can’t own stuff like this anyway. Once he’s in South Africa super safe
Well, kind of, but the problem here is Trump saying he will cancel the contracts.
SpaceX would be bound by their contracts, so if they are signed and Trump does not rip them up, then Elon cannot just walk away.
Uh no they can’t if the US government doesn’t let them.
What are the courts going to stop them from seizing the equipment.
SpaceX is a privately owned company. I’m absolutely certain the US government doesn’t own any of their intellectual property. If they chose to, they could move the entire operation to any other country, and US courts could probably do nothing to prevent it.
I’d just like to note, Elon doesn’t have majority stake in SpaceX any more. He only owns 42% as of last year. I doubt the other investors will be so keen to burn all these bridges, but I guess we’ll see.
Not so sure. Stuff like ITAR exists to prevent exactly that. The us could also declare SpaceX to be some kind of national security interest.
SpaceX operates a fleet of privately owned ICBMs under license from the US government. Without the license and authority of the US government, SpaceX’s fundamental operations would be criminal: You and I would be arrested if we tried to build an ICBM without government permission.
The intellectual property they are using is subject to ITAR regulation. Any American trying to transfer that IP outside of the US would be quickly indicted. Any foreign government using or authorizing the use of that IP would be heavily sanctioned.
SpaceX operates a fleet of privately owned ICBMs under license from the US government.
That’s not true. All nuclear weapons in the US’s arsenal are under the control of the US military. You are correct to say that it would be illegal for any private contractor to operate its own fleet of ICBMs…and that includes SpeceX.
The intellectual property they are using is subject to ITAR regulation. Any American trying to transfer that IP outside of the US would be quickly indicted. Any foreign government using or authorizing the use of that IP would be heavily sanctioned.
ITAR doesn’t prevent SpaceX from moving its base of operations to another country. As I said, they are a privately owned company. Moving their operations to another country is not the same thing as “giving” that technology to that country.
That’s not true. All nuclear weapons
Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. ICBM. You’ll note that there is no “N” in that initialism. The presence or absence of a nuclear weapon is irrelevant. The missile itself is what I am talking about.
The missile, and all of the essential technology for building and operating it, are subject to export controls. ITAR and EAR, which apply not only to the physical items, but to the IP associated with those items as well.
ITAR doesn’t prevent SpaceX from moving its base of operations to another country.
ITAR allows SpaceX to take the name of the company to another country, and that’s about it.
Not the hardware, software, IP, or anything they would need to actually conduct their operations from that country.
StarLink could (probably) be moved out of the US, and rely on foreign launchers to maintain their satellite constellations. But not SpaceX, unless the US government specifically permits them to do so. Which they won’t.
SpaceX operates a fleet of privately owned ICBMs under license from the US government.
That’s not true. All nuclear weapons in the US’s arsenal are under the control of the US military. You are correct to say that it would be illegal for any private contractor to operate its own fleet of ICBMs…and that includes SpeceX.
Nah man space rockets are just ICBMs with a human payload instead of an explosive one.
Gonna need a megathread for this fallout. They are at each other.
-Calls for Impeachment
-Decommissioning contracts
-Naming in Epstein files
-ICE rounding up musk
That last point would be beautiful
You forgot Musk leaking all the snooped data he’s collected from all the White House staff traversing his Starlink dish on the White House roof. Anyone know what the over/under for number of christian conservative senior White House officials found actively using Grindr?
He didn’t threaten this one though. The other four were actual posts by the two idiots
Why grope an aide when you can Grindr?
Because Grindr requires consent.
Say goodbye to human spaceflight for an entire generation. We made a huge mistake hitching everything onto this fucker’s stuff.
I’ve been waiting for us to leave LEO since I was a kid in the 80s and it now looks like I might be dying without ever having witnessed even a moon landing. I envy my parents.
Unless China or India or Russia pull something off. They’re all we have after this.
China is already testing a starship clone.
We’ve seen it works. It can be reengineered. Not that they’d be allowed to just ignore their contract like that. They’d forcefully remove the company from him before that happened.
Can’t the admin simply seize SpaceX, if it is that important to “national security”? If elon complains, deport him and nationalize his stuff on the grounds that he got his citizenship under illegal pretenses (illegal immigrant).
They certainly could. I don’t think it’s a terrible idea either - Elon is not stable enough to handle the decision making for national security tech.
I mean, the current national security advisor doesn’t seem stable enough to handle the decision making either. It’s unsurprising that E-Mu fit in fine with this administration until recently.
I find that less likely than an investor and board of directors revolt at SpaceX.
SpaceX is a private company. Musk has total control over it.
They have many private investors.
I think you mean for the west. China has its own rockets and space station and I imagine they aren’t stopping just cause SpaceX decided to shoot itself in the foot.
I think you mean for America. Europe has its own programs and they’re only ramping them up.
Most of Europe is at war with the only European country who’s gotten people into space. Russia certainly doesn’t have the money or capacity to work on manned space operations right now and while the rest of Europe may be working on it, they might get there.
Most of Europe is at war with the only European country who’s gotten people into space
Sure, but they’re on the same side.
(Unless you mean the USSR, but that hasn’t existed for more than 30 years, and it was mostly Ukrainian scientists and engineers doing the job during the space race anyway.)
I think you’re joking a out how Ukrainians are the real people who got the USSR into space?
I was more calling out Russia is the only country with rockets that have gotten people into space. I think Europe has the means to do it, but whether that’ll be a priority over defense or other issues is the question. If SpaceX really pulls out of manned space flights, then it’s really just China at that point.
I think you’re joking a out how Ukrainians are the real people who got the USSR into space?
I’m not. It was mostly paperclipped Nazis on one side, mostly Ukrainians on the other. 🤷♂️
Russia might have ended up with the USSR’s rockets, but they certainly didn’t make and much less design them. The only thing Russia has ever produced is a worse future for Russia. They’re extremely efficient at that. It’s their whole history: “… and then it got worse.”
I was talking about ESA. They have the capability with the Arianne 6 to get people into space.
China.
China is killing it honestly. My money is actually on them for next boots on the moon.
Shades of The Martian are coming to mind for me.
Ironic that the man convinced he was going to take humanity to Mars just set back humanity’s interplanetary expansion by a generation.
Maybe what we’ve lost with this mistake will balance out by teaching us that autocrats/oligarchs don’t serve us but it’s hard to imagine it at this point.
Need Musk to start talking about how he rigged the voting machines…
He would never put himself in additional danger to help anybody.
Could just blame Trump. Say he was threatened with helping him or his contracts and family would be killed. I would 100% believe it. Wouldn’t even need receipts.
Don’t put anything past this admin.
Right, but then they might actually kill him. I don’t see where the confusion is about him not putting his neck on the line.
But would he put himself in additional danger for the lols? Or because drugs? Or raging narcisism? Let’s be real, E-Mu is confused. Could totally hurt himself in his confusion.
I just hope they both come out of this knowing that nobody gives a shit about either one of them
Can’t retire if you never worked.
The dragon capsule worked though? You may be thinking of starliner, which is Boeing.
I’m thinking of Starship.
So Elon’s cancelling the thing that works, but not the giant firecracker?
The thing that works is currently being used by NASA to get astronauts to and from the ISS. The threat was aimed at messing up NASA’s current plans after Donald threatened to toss the SpaceX contracts.
There no contract for starship yet. They may have gotten a grant for future development or something. But it’s only a potential tool for the Artemis missions in the future
Seems like running a national space program that depends on a private company run by a petulant child is a bad idea.
NASA has always relied upon contractors to do all the actual construction.
And luckily that permanent child just owns it. They made him step much farther away from running it after his smoking weed live on a podcast.
presumably well thought out business decisions arent made spontaneously out of rage from a twitter fight.
While on ketamine.
It’s the “You can’t fire me! I quit!” response to Trump threatening his NASA contracts.
Seems more like the cutting off his nose to spite his face.
To be fair, that will teach his dumb stupid face a lesson it deserves.
Seems more like the cutting off his nose to spite outer space.
Indeed. And Shotwell will likely remind Elon they can’t do that and stay solvent. It wouldn’t be the first time she’s uncancelled something he’s decided to throw out.
I wouldn’t be surprised if starlink was enough to keep them solvent
It’s bed time in the UK, can someone keep me updated with the shitshow whilst I sleep?
I’m glad there’s places like Lemmy and even some news sources that compile the fallout together to save me digging through all of the content for its main points. I was thinking earlier today at work that I sure hope that helpful Lemmy users will compile and summarize the big ones for me.
