Elon Musk has sharply intensified his conflict with President Trump, effectively threatening to leave NASA astronauts stranded aboard the International Space Station.
The billionaire tech mogul announced on X Thursday that he is decommissioning his company’s Dragon spacecraft “immediately.”
This dramatic step came after Trump posted on Truth Social suggesting he might terminate all U.S. government contracts with Musk’s commercial space company, SpaceX.
Just two months ago, SpaceX’s Dragon capsule was used to rescue astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, who had spent 286 days aboard the ISS.
Without the Dragon spacecraft, NASA would be left without a tested American vehicle to transport astronauts to and from the orbiting laboratory.
Currently, four NASA astronauts are on the ISS following the recent return of Williams and Wilmore.
It remains unclear whether Musk would allow those astronauts to return using the existing Dragon capsule still docked at the station.
Although NASA has a separate deal with Boeing to develop the Starliner spacecraft, the troubled project continues to suffer from technical problems, leaving it unfit for human transport for the time being.
The Musk-Trump feud erupted after Musk publicly criticized the Republican-backed “Big Beautiful Bill.”
The sweeping budget bill is expected to add trillions to the national deficit, prompting Musk to exit the Trump administration in protest.
Musk had been in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which claimed to have saved the U.S. tens of billions of dollars by targeting wasteful federal spending.
DOGE’s long-term mission had been to reach savings in the trillions.
Following his exit, the dispute between Musk and Trump turned increasingly hostile on social media.
On Thursday, Musk alleged that Trump is “in the Epstein files,” sharply intensifying the ongoing spat.
He also posted that Trump should be impeached and replaced by 40-year-old Vice President JD Vance.
Shortly before Musk’s Epstein claim, Trump had said on Truth Social that he had asked Musk to leave his administration and accused him of going “CRAZY!”
Trump then floated a new strategy to cut federal spending, suggesting he could slash “Billions and Billions of Dollars” by severing ties with both SpaceX and Tesla.
Since 2015, SpaceX has received more than $17 billion in federal contracts, much of it from NASA and the Department of Defense, according to ABC News.
Tesla has reportedly received about $1 billion in federal funds as of the most recent estimates in February.
