Earlier this year, Elon Musk announced that President Donald Trump personally asked him to bring home NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who have been stranded aboard the International Space Station for nearly eight months.
The pair originally launched aboard Boeing’s Starliner, but technical failures—including helium leaks and thruster malfunctions—rendered the capsule unsafe for their return. NASA ordered it back to Earth without crew, leaving Wilmore and Williams in orbit.
Plans for their retrieval using a SpaceX capsule had been established during the Biden administration but were repeatedly delayed. Musk criticized the delays, writing on his social media platform X: “Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”
NASA initially targeted February for their return but shifted the timeline to March or early April. SpaceX has a capsule already in orbit, though the replacement crew must first launch and dock before Wilmore and Williams can depart. NASA prefers overlapping crews at the station to ensure smooth transitions.
Musk currently leads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an agency formed by Trump to reduce bureaucracy and federal costs. Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy was originally tapped as co-leader but later stepped aside to pursue a run for Ohio governor.
With Musk’s leadership role under scrutiny and a critical mission ahead, questions remain about how his dual responsibilities—as both government reform chief and SpaceX CEO—will shape the months to come.
