How could President Trump-Elon Musk clash impact space industry at Cape Canaveral, Florida?
With President Donald Trump and SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk exchanging barbs during a June 5 social media spat , potential space-industry threats emerged — cancellation of Musk's federal contracts and decommissioning SpaceX Dragon spacecraft — that could pack profound impacts for Florida's Space Coast.
That said, Don Platt, director of the Florida Institute of Technology's Spaceport Education Center in Titusville, believes it is best to "take it all with a grain of salt." He noted that SpaceX and the U.S. government depend heavily on each other.
"Honestly, I think this is mostly bluster," Platt said.
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"I see Musk has backed down on his statement now about decommissioning the Dragon modules. I think he was more pointing out the fact that, indeed, the government is very much reliant on all sorts of SpaceX's technology right now," he said.
Musk — who spent more than $277 million helping Trump and other Republicans campaign for last fall's election — led Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, which reportedly slashed about $160 billion in federal spending and spearheaded mass layoffs and job buyouts.
Musk left his DOGE post on May 30 to focus on his companies, which were earmarked $3 billion in almost 100 contracts with 17 federal agencies in 2024, the New York Times reported . SpaceX accounted for the bulk of these contracts.
The next day, Trump dropped Jared Isaacman — the Polaris Program mission commander who partnered with SpaceX on two orbital flights — as his choice to become NASA's next administrator. Then Musk ramped up criticism of Trump's "big, beautiful bill" tax-policy legislation, labeling it "a disgusting abomination."
The Trump-Musk social media battle intensified with a 2:37 p.m. June 5 Trump post on Truth Social: "The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn’t do it!"
Musk responded in a 4:09 p.m. tweet: "In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately."
A little more than five hours later, Musk backed off his threat to decommission Dragon in another tweet.
In the coming months on the Space Coast, SpaceX plans to invest more than $1.8 billion bringing Starship rockets and Super Heavy boosters — the most powerful rocket system in history — to the Space Coast, creating an estimated 600 full-time jobs by 2030. The company also seeks Federal Aviation Administration permission to increase annual Falcon 9 rocket launches from 50 to 120 from Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
SpaceX dominating Florida's Space Coast launches
Stakes are high for Florida's Space Coast because of SpaceX's dominance of the launch industry. Last year, SpaceX launched 88 of the record-breaking 93 orbital rockets that rose from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's adjacent Kennedy Space Center. United Launch Alliance accounted for the other five.
Thus far this year, SpaceX has launched 45 of the 47 rockets from Florida , ranging from batches of Starlink satellites to NASA's Crew-10 astronauts, an International Space Station resupply mission, national security missions, communications satellites and moon landers. Blue Origin's New Glenn liftoff on Jan. 16 and ULA's first Project Kuiper mission on April 28 were the lone non-SpaceX launches.
NASA contracts with SpaceX to ferry astronauts and cargo to and from the ISS aboard Dragon spacecraft. With Boeing's Starliner unable to successfully return astronauts after its ill-fated maiden crewed flight last year, the Dragon remains the only viable American ride to space.
Laura Forczyk, founder and executive director of the Palm Bay space consulting firm Astralytical, said it would be "extremely difficult" for the federal government to completely cut off its contracts with SpaceX.
"The United States government relies on SpaceX to launch its payloads, observatories, astronauts and cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station. So that includes NASA. That also includes the Department of Defense, the Space Force, NOAA with weather satellites," Forczyk said.
"Every single U.S. entity that launches in space largely relies on SpaceX. There is no other U.S. vehicle that can launch humans to space other than Falcon 9-Dragon at this point," she said.
Looking to the future, Forczyk said a question for NASA is "whether or not President Trump will continue to push for a Mars exploration (and) agenda without Elon Musk‘s encouragement and influence."
Landing humans on Mars has long been a top goal for Musk, who says his ultimate aim is to make humans a multiplanetary species. He hopes to launch the first uncrewed Starship to Mars next year, and Trump's proposed budget includes $1 billion for future Mars exploration .
Musk's Dragon decommissioning threat
Ken Kremer is a Titusville research chemist and managing editor of SpaceUpClose.com. On May 31, he attended retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson's U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
Whitson is now commanding Axiom Space's fourth crewed mission to the ISS , in partnership with SpaceX. On Tuesday, June 10, a Dragon is scheduled to carry her and three fellow astronauts from India, Poland and Hungary into low-Earth orbit aboard a Falcon 9. Liftoff is scheduled for 8:22 a.m. from KSC.
“It’s absolutely amazing. Elon Musk is totally irresponsible to threaten to decommission the Dragon immediately. That’s just awful," Kremer said.
"The future of the ISS is dependent, as you know, on the Dragon. It must fly,” he said.
Kremer said Musk is threatening the success of his own business, particularly given the accelerating cadence of liftoffs from the Cape.
“He is imperiling his own launches for Starlink, commercial companies, military satellites. And it’s just kind of, like, mind-boggling that he would threaten to do something like that. It’s self-destructive," he said.
Coming up tonight, SpaceX will launch a geostationary satellite for SiriusXM on a Falcon 9 during a four-hour window that opens at 11:19 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
For the latest news from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and NASA's Kennedy Space Center, visit /space . Another easy way: Click here to sign up for our weekly Space newsletter .
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at Rneale@ . Twitter/X: @RickNeale1
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: How could President Trump-Elon Musk clash impact space industry at Cape Canaveral, Florida?
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