Musk threatens to decommission spacecraft during feud with Trump

Founder and CEO of SpaceX Elon Musk on Thursday in a now-deleted post on X threatened to order his company to immediately begin decommissioning the Dragon spacecraft. He made the decision as a response to President Donald Trump’s Thursday suggestion that the U.S. government save money by cutting government contracts to Musk’s companies, he said. Musk seemingly reversed course on the decommissioning hours later at the request of a random social media user who asked him to take time to cool off.

The Dragon spacecraft was scheduled for a June 10 mission to deliver crew members to the International Space Station. It’s unclear if that mission will go forward. Musk’s spacecraft is currently the only U.S. option for missions to the station.

What led to this? Musk and Trump publicly feuded on Wednesday and Thursday over social media and in statements to reporters, after Musk expressed opposition to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Musk said the huge budget bill, a Trump priority, would push the national debt ceiling too high through overspending.

Musk and Trump then traded jabs both on- and off-topic. Musk reposted Trump’s former statements about eliminating the national deficit and suggested the president wouldn’t have won without his support. Musk also accused Trump of appearing in the Epstein files. Trump meanwhile accused Musk of starting the kerfuffle because the bill didn’t contain an electric vehicle mandate that would have profited Musk’s Tesla company. The spat seemed to be cooling down on Friday, with neither man posting about the feud by midday.

Dig deeper: Read Leo Briceno’s report on how some Republicans believe economic growth will counter the budget bill’s cost.