"Just over a year ago, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made it abundantly clear he was not interested in visiting the Moon. In January 2025, the height of his bromance with president Donald Trump, he tweeted that the "Moon is a distraction," asserting instead that "we're going straight to Mars." He has lambasted NASA's efforts to return to the lunar surface, accusing its Artemis program of being "extremely inefficient as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program.""
"For many years now, Musk has made it his number one goal to establish a city on Mars, using 1,000 of the company's Starship rockets in an interstellar colonization effort that was supposed to kick off back in 2024. Having completely missed that goal, the mercurial entrepreneur appears to have had a major change of heart, contradicting his earlier statements by arguing that the plan is now to go to the Moon and build a city there after all."
Elon Musk abandoned his earlier dismissal of lunar missions and repositioned SpaceX toward building a self-growing city on the Moon, citing faster timelines and closer proximity compared with Mars. Musk previously prioritized establishing a Mars city using 1,000 Starship rockets with an initial target around 2024, a goal that was missed. He criticized NASA's Artemis program as "extremely inefficient" and framed the Moon colony as necessary to secure the future of civilization. Musk claimed a lunar settlement could be achievable in less than ten years versus 20+ years for Mars. The shift coincides with SpaceX's acquisition of xAI and plans for a $1.25 trillion public valuation.
Read at Futurism
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