Musk Threatens to Decommission Dragon Amid Feud with Trump

Less than one week after Elon Musk and President Trump shared a warm Oval Office send-off as Musk ended his Special Government Employee status, the two are in a war of words with Trump threatening to end Musk’s government subsidies and contracts. Musk responded with his own threat to immediately begin decommissioning Dragon, which would have dramatic consequences for the International Space Station. Cargo Dragon is one of two U.S. spacecraft that can deliver supplies to the ISS and Crew Dragon is the only operational U.S. vehicle capable of ferrying crews back and forth.

The public battle began the day after that May 30 Oval Office meeting. Musk strongly criticized the “One Big Beautiful” reconciliation bill that passed the House last month and now is awaiting action in the Senate. By Tuesday, Musk was calling it a “disgusting abomination” and urging the Senate to reject it because it increases rather than decreases government spending.

At the same time, while the Oval Office send-off seemed friendly on the surface, the same day NASA Administrator-nominee Jared Isaacman was notified by the White House that the President was withdrawing his nomination to be NASA Administrator. Musk had recommended Isaacman and stories soon emerged that Musk’s departure and the decision to pull Isaacman’s nomination were linked. White House insiders weary of Musk reportedly wanted to send a message. In a podcast interview this week, Isaacman said his understanding is that people with “axes to grind” used him to make a point. The White House’s explanation at the time was they just learned he’d made contributions to Democratic candidates, but that was well known for months.

During a meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz today, Trump was asked about his relationship with Musk because of the comments about the reconciliation bill. Trump defended the bill and argued Musk was opposing it only because it ends subsidies for electric vehicles like Musk’s Teslas called the EV mandate.

Trump then shifted the conversation to the NASA Administrator decision. Without naming Isaacman, Trump criticized him for being a Democrat and acknowledged he knew that and decided to nominate him anyway.

“You know, [Musk] recommended somebody that he, I guess, knew very well, I’m sure he respected him, to run NASA. And I didn’t think it was appropriate. And he happened to be a Democrat, like totally Democrat, and I say, you know, look, we won, we get certain privileges and one of the privileges we get is to appoint a Democrat. NASA is very important. We have great people. General [Dan] Caine [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] is going to be picking somebody. We’ll be checking him out.”

Isaacman said on the podcast that he’s “relatively apolitical.” His nomination was approved by the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on April 30 by a vote of 19-9 with all Republicans and 4 Democrats in favor and 9 Democrats opposed. Montana Republican Senator Tim Sheehy introduced Isaacman at his confirmation hearing and came to his defense on Saturday when Trump’s decision became public, posting on X that he strongly opposes “efforts to derail his nomination.”

The Trump-Musk feud began over the reconciliation bill, not Isaacman’s nomination, but has escalated. As today wore on, the two harshly criticized each other on their respective social media platforms, Truth Social and X. To Musk’s complaint that the reconciliation bill doesn’t cut federal spending enough, Trump posted that one way to save “billions and billions” was to terminate Musk’s “governmental subsidies and contracts.”

Musk is founder and CEO of SpaceX, NASA’s second largest contractor and a major DOD contractor as well. SpaceX’s Starlink and Starshield communications systems have become essential to U.S military operations. Falcon and Falcon Heavy are the backbone of DOD’s and NASA’s ability to launch satellites. SpaceX Cargo Dragon spacecraft are one of two U.S. vehicles that can deliver supplies to the ISS and Crew Dragon is the only U.S. vehicle that can ferry crews back and forth. The Starship space transportation system now in development is slated to be the Human Landing System to put NASA astronauts back on the lunar surface two years from now and eventually send people to Mars.

Terminating any of those contracts would have profound consequences for U.S. national security and civilian space operations, starting with the ISS. Musk responded by saying he’d start decommissioning Dragon right now.

In light of the President’s statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately pic.twitter.com/NG9sijjkgW

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 5, 2025

It’s not clear how serious he is, but Musk previously said he thinks the ISS has served its purpose and should be deorbited two years from now instead of 2030 as planned.

NASA contracted with Boeing and SpaceX in 2014 to develop two ISS crew transportation systems so they would have “dissimilar redundancy” in case one system was grounded, but Boeing’s Starliner isn’t operational yet so Crew Dragon is the only U.S. option. For the nine years (2011-2020) between the end of the space shuttle program and the first time Crew Dragon took astronauts to ISS, NASA paid Russia to transport astronauts to and from the ISS on Soyuz vehicles, but Russia has sharply cut back Soyuz production. They’ve reduced the frequency of their own flights to the ISS. If Soyuz were the only way to get back and forth, ISS operations would be reduced to an extremely minimal level.

Even deorbiting the ISS, whenever that happens, relies on SpaceX. NASA contracted with SpaceX last year to build the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle (USDV) to safely propel ISS down through the atmosphere into the Pacific Ocean so it doesn’t pose a hazard to other spacecraft.

Hopefully cooler heads will prevail, but as of press time Musk is doubling-down on his attacks on Trump so the situation is very uncertain.

Update:  Later in the evening someone on X who goes by “Alaska” expressed dismay and urged the two men to “cool off and take a step back for a couple of days.” Musk replied: “Good advice. OK, we won’t decommission Dragon.”

Good advice.

Ok, we won’t decommission Dragon.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 6, 2025