Barely a year ago, the moon was “a distraction” to Elon Musk, the billionaire chief executive of SpaceX then fixated on his ludicrously ambitious project to build a self-sustaining city on Mars within 20 years,
The Guardian reports.
Why bother returning to the orbiting chunk of rock humanity conquered half a century ago, he reasoned, when the greater prize of the red planet lay tantalizingly in reach for his company’s mighty Starship rockets?
Fast forward to February 2026, and the world’s richest man appears to have had something of an epiphany. In an abrupt reversal of his long-stated plans, Mars is suddenly on the back burner. And getting US astronauts back on the lunar surface before the end of Donald Trump’s second term of office in three years’ time is the priority now, as well as keeping them there.
“For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years,” Musk wrote Sunday on X, the social media platform he also owns.
“The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars. SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster.”
The post contained no mention of Trump, his on-again, off-again friend and political ally from Musk’s chaotic tenure as head of the president’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) last year that upended numerous federal agencies without delivering the $2tn in savings he promised.
But it is hard to separate Musk’s volte-face with the US president’s vainglorious quest, delivered in a December executive order titled Ensuring American Space Supremacy, to see the Stars and Stripes planted on the moon during his presidency.
Such an accomplishment would be, to phrase it mildly, a huge ask. Budget overruns and technical problems have significantly delayed Nasa’s Artemis program, and the Artemis 3 moon landing, the first since the final Apollo mission in 1972, has been pushed back several times from its original target of 2024 to “by 2028”.
Musk’s maneuver allows his company to direct more immediate resources to that mission, for which SpaceX is contracted to supply the human landing system (HLS) component.
Even so, it has its work cut out.
A leaked internal document, reported by Politico in November, revealed a timeline at odds with that of Nasa, predicting a “boots on the moon” mission no earlier than September 2028, and only then “if all goes well” with preparatory missions.
