Elon Musk's Friday comments are already Second serious public split with Donald Trump in areas that affect entrepreneur's companies. First, the billionaire seemed to deviate from the party line – repeatedly attacking Peter Navarro, one of the faces of the Trump's sales program – when the administration introduced extensive customs duty on global trading partners, causing significant market variability and resulting in billions of dollars losses for Tesla Muska.
The latest Musk attack on administration policy took place on Friday, when news about NASA financing appeared. Spacex Muska is one of the agency's largest contractors.
The head of SpaceX reacted to the technological reports of the Ars Technica information service, according to which the draft budget for NASA would reduce the total budget of the IO 50 percent agency by approx. 20 percent. financing of scientific activities. Musk called this message “disturbing”.
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– I strongly support learning, but unfortunately I cannot participate in NASA budgetary discussionsbecause SpaceX is NASA's main contractor – he added.
Politico did not confirm the OMB budget numbers independently. NASA spokesman told us that the agency got acquainted with the budget for 2026 and “started the deliberation process”, but refused to comment on the details of Musk's budget or comments.
Trump promised to reduce the size of the federal government, calling Musk to conduct actions in order the abolition of “waste, fraud and abuse”. Doge Muska followed this command, making drastic cuts in financing and staff at federal agencies.
Even if Musk is removed from talks about the agency's budget, he has long -term relationships with Trump's candidate for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman, whose SHIFT4 company, dealing with payment processing, invested in SpaceX. Isaacman, however, tried to distance him from him during the interrogation in the Senaterefusing directly confirming whether Musk was present at his first interview with the president.
“Neverfected budget proposal”
The White House did not immediately answer at the request for a comment on this story, but Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the White House, on Tuesday ignored Musk's earlier attacks on Navarro – whose billionaire called “moron” and “Peter Retarrdo – telling journalists:”The boys will remain boysand we will allow them to continue public sparring. “
Trump also still praised Musk's work with Doge, saying to him at the Thursday meeting of the office: – Your people are fantastic. Let's hope they stay nearby for longerwe would like to stop as much as possible [z nich].
The administration also took steps to makecuts in financing research in other placesincluding the cancellation of financing the American program of research on global changes, which develops the National Climate Assessment commissioned by the Congress.
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NASA
A proposal to limit NASA financing will probably meet with opposition in the congress, whose task is finalizing the budget before handing it over to the president for signing.
Some legislators have already applied against reports of the proposed cuts. Chris Van Hollen, a senator of the Democratic Party, condemned on Friday cutting in NASA as “short -sighted” and “dangerous” and promised to fight them.
– This is a completely frivolous budget proposition. In my role in the subcommittee on funds […] I will fight fiercely against these cuts and to protect the important work performed at the NASA Center. Goddard – said Van Hollen.
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