Musk says SpaceX will decommission Dragon spacecraft after Trump threat

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Who's "abandoning astronauts in space" now, Taco Trump?

During a Fox News interview with host Sean Hannity on Feb. 18, Trump said he gave Musk the “go-ahead” to accelerate a mission to retrieve the astronauts, claiming that they had been abandoned on purpose by former President Joe Biden to avoid political backlash. Trump said, “They didn’t have the go-ahead with Biden. He was going to leave them in space. I think he was going to leave them in space. … He didn’t want the publicity. Can you believe it?”

It was not the first time Trump had made such an accusation. On Jan. 28, Trump took to Truth Social to post, “I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to ‘go get’ the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration.”

During the Hannity interview, Musk claimed that at Trump’s request “we are accelerating the return of the astronauts, which was postponed, kind of, to a ridiculous degree,” saying that “they were left up there for political reasons, which is not good.”

In response to Musk’s claims, several astronauts took to X to refute the idea that the astronauts were purposefully abandoned. Andreas Mogensen, a former SpaceX astronaut from Denmark, posted: “What a lie. And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media.” In response to Mogensen, Elon replied: “You are fully retarded. SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago. I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused. Return WAS pushed back for political reasons. Idiot.”

Mogensen responded by stating, “Elon, I have long admired you and what you have accomplished, especially at SpaceX and Tesla. You know as well as I do, that Butch and Suni are returning with Crew-9, as has been the plan since last September. Even now, you are not sending up a rescue ship to bring them home. They are returning on the Dragon capsule that has been on ISS since last September.”

https://www.factcheck.org/2025/03/the-facts-behind-the-delayed-return-of-u-s-astronauts/