The world’s wealthiest individual, Elon Musk, engaged in a heated exchange with a Danish astronaut who criticized the tech billionaire’s assertion that former US president Joe Biden deliberately left two American astronauts stranded on the International Space Station.
Andreas “Andy” Mogensen shared a Fox News clip on X featuring Mr. Musk and US President Donald Trump, where Mr. Musk claimed that NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were abandoned on the orbital platform for “political reasons” by Joe Biden, stating that the new administration was now intervening to assist.
“What a lie. And from someone who complains about the lack of honesty in the mainstream media,” commented the 48-year-old European Space Agency astronaut, who has been to the ISS twice, including a mission aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule in 2023.
Musk reacted by labeling Mogensen as “fully retarded,” adding that “SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago” and that he had proposed such an offer to the Biden administration, although he did not provide details about what the offer involved.
What a lie.
And from someone who complains about the lack of honesty from the mainstream media.
— Andreas Mogensen (@Astro_Andreas) February 20, 2025
However, thruster issues prompted NASA to determine that Starliner should return without its crew, leading the agency to assign SpaceX the task of rescuing the veteran astronauts.
NASA subsequently announced that the astronauts would return on the SpaceX Crew-9 mission’s spacecraft, which launched in September with a crew of two instead of four to accommodate them.
The return journey was initially set for February but was later postponed to March due to delays on SpaceX’s part in readying the spacecraft for Crew-10, whose crew will replace Crew-9’s.
Should there have been an alternate rescue plan that could have been implemented sooner, Musk has not disclosed it.
“Elon, I have long admired you and your achievements, especially at SpaceX and Tesla,” Mogensen responded to Musk’s remarks.
“You are aware, as am I, that Butch and Suni are returning with Crew-9, as has been the plan since last September. Even now, you are not dispatching a rescue ship to bring them back. They are returning on the Dragon capsule that has been at the ISS since last September.”
