An escalating feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump threatens to disrupt key U.S. space programs and jeopardize $22 billion in government contracts with SpaceX.
A public clash between SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and U.S. President Donald Trump has raised alarms in Washington and beyond, as political tensions risk spilling into the future of American space exploration.
The fallout began after Musk sharply criticized Trump’s tax and spending proposals, prompting a combative response from Trump during Oval Office remarks. What followed was a volley of attacks on social media, culminating in Trump threatening to revoke federal contracts held by Musk’s companies. In retaliation, Musk said he would begin decommissioning the Dragon spacecraft - SpaceX’s crew vehicle used by NASA.
Though Musk later walked back that statement, calling it “good advice” to cool off, his initial threat sent shockwaves through the aerospace industry. The Dragon capsule is central to U.S. crewed spaceflight under a $5 billion NASA contract and currently serves as the only American vehicle transporting astronauts to and from the International Space Station (ISS).
SpaceX holds approximately $22 billion in government contracts, including missions with both NASA and the Pentagon. The prospect of politically motivated cancellations could seriously undermine U.S. space ambitions, experts warn.
The spat has also fractured a once-cozy relationship between Musk and Trump, which had previously led to favorable policy shifts for SpaceX - ranging from Mars mission proposals to expanded military launch access.
NASA declined to comment directly on the matter. Spokesperson Bethany Stevens stated only that the agency would “continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the president’s objectives in space are met.”
If SpaceX were to pull the Dragon from service, it could disrupt international collaboration aboard the ISS, a cornerstone of space diplomacy.
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European leaders gathered in Dublin on Thursday, 12 November, for the ninth European Political Community (EPC) summit, with security, defence and energy high on the agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks focused on peace, trade and regional cooperation.
Iran will not let a single particle of its enriched nuclear material leave the country, and any new U.S. attack would be met with strikes on distant American bases, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has said.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is stepping down amid reports linking him to a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of spying for China, throwing the future of the $4 trillion chipmaker into uncertainty.
Kazakhstan’s security service has arrested Nurlan Zhakupov, CEO of Samruk-Kazyna, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, on suspicion of corruption. Yelzhas Otynshiyev, Chairman of KTZ, Kazakhstan’s national railway firm has also been detained.
Eight people have been killed and at least 17 injured after an apartment building collapsed into a neighbouring construction site in Brooklyn, New York, as rescuers continued searching the rubble for possible survivors.
BMW is recalling more than 720,000 vehicles in the U.S. over a fire risk, warning owners to park outside and away from buildings until repairs are completed. The recall follows 10 reported fires involving cars previously repaired for the same fault.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says 3.7 million children in Afghanistan are suffering from acute malnutrition, as worsening drought and funding shortages threaten to deepen the crisis amid the COP31 climate summit in Türkiye.
A consortium of Türkiye’s Limak and Qatar’s HBK Contracting has won an international tender to build and operate a new airport terminal in Bukhara, Uzbekistan, under a 23-year public-private partnership, with the project potentially costing up to $300 million.
Spain’s parliament has approved a government package aimed at easing the country’s housing crisis, a day after workers staged the first general strike in 14 years over soaring housing costs.
Here's your AnewZ Technology Daily Brief for the 13th of November. This week, a Microsoft outage hit Australian agencies, Google restricted mapping data in South Korea, a lawsuit targeted advanced AI development, and Nvidia faced a leadership crisis after Jensen Huang's resignation.
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