Elon Musk mocks President Biden after SpaceX completes first all-civilian mission

After SpaceX completed a historic private space flight on Saturday, CEO Elon Musk shot President Joe Biden who had yet to comment on the achievements of the company and the civilian flight crew.

One of Musk’s 60 million subscribers on the social networking platform Twitter asked, “The President of the United States has even refused to recognize the 4 new American astronauts who have helped raise hundreds of millions. dollars for St. Jude. What’s your theory on why This is? “

Musk replied, “He’s still sleeping.”

As CNBC previously reported, SpaceX safely returned its Crew Dragon spacecraft from orbit yesterday. The capsule brought the four members of the Inspiration4 mission back to Earth after three days in space.

One of the main goals of the Inspiration4 mission was to raise $ 200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He had raised $ 160.2 million on Saturday. Celebrating the collapse of Inspiration4, Musk pledged to personally contribute $ 50 million, bringing the campaign’s total to $ 210 million.

The White House and SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Senior NASA officials praised Musk and SpaceX on the Inspiration4 mission. SpaceX’s competitors have also acknowledged this, with praise from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Blue Origin and Musk’s peer and rival, Jeff Bezos, shared on social media.

It was the first private SpaceX spaceflight, with an unprofessional crew. Additionally, the mission involved the first black woman to serve as a spaceship pilot, the youngest American to become an astronaut to date, and the first person to fly into space with a prosthesis.

Although Musk recently said he “would rather stay out of politics,” his quip on Sunday indicated his willingness to steer the Democratic president and repeat a right-wing taunt about Biden.

During his 2020 campaign, former President Donald Trump often insulted then-candidate Biden by calling him “Sleepy Joe.”

Most recently, Trump sent Biden sarcastic wishes ahead of a summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in June. He said in an emailed statement at the time: “Good luck to Biden in his dealings with President Putin – don’t fall asleep during the meeting, and please give him my warmest regards. ! “

SpaceX generally has a good relationship with the federal government. For example, it won a $ 2.89 billion contract to build NASA’s next manned lunar lander, defeating Blue Origin from Jeff Bezos and the Leidos Dynetics affiliate, and SpaceX sent 10 astronauts to the ISS. for NASA to date.

However, SpaceX is also under investigation by the Justice Department after charges of discriminating against job applicants based on their citizenship status – an investigation that began under the Trump administration. .

In addition to his responsibilities at SpaceX, Musk is concurrently the CEO of electric vehicle maker Tesla. (Tesla is also a supplier to SpaceX.)

In that capacity, he recently lamented a proposal from the Biden administration that would allocate an additional $ 4,500 in incentives to buyers of certain new electric light passenger vehicles. One stipulation of the proposal is that electric vehicles should be manufactured by unions, nationally.

While the company already operates a battery plant in Nevada and a vehicle assembly plant in California, with another under construction outside of Austin, Texas, Tesla is the only major U.S. automaker whose production is not unionized here.

Musk said, on Twitter on September 12, of the proposal: “This is written by Ford / UAW lobbyists as they build their electric car in Mexico. It’s not clear what the point is. American taxpayers. “

In Cars.com’s annual American Made Index for 2021, Tesla’s popular Model 3 electric sedan tops the rankings, and its Model Y crossover landed in third place.