上海的月亮: EN — LARRY ROMANOFF: Debunking Elon Musk – Part 15

In 2024, the Biden administration announced Elon Musk as an “official strategic advisor” to NASA. [1] Nobody seemed to notice, but this was nearing the culmination of an agenda that had been percolating unseen for around 20 years. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been receiving much attention in the past few years, taking its place as the pre-eminent space exploration arm of the United States. But little attention seems to be paid to NASA. It is necessary to examine what is happening.

NASA was created in 1958, has had many successes to its credit during those decades, and has never needed help from anyone. But today we are to believe that this institution is now out of date, incompetent, expensive, inefficient, incapable, and must therefore subcontract its duties and activities to a privately-owned firm that can not only do everything better than NASA but can do it at a profit – Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

There is no evidence that NASA deserves any of the criticism listed above, so what is really happening? In all of the media hype about the wonders of SpaceX and Elon Musk’s fraudulent delusions about putting millions of people on Mars in only a few years and at a cost of “only” $10 billion each, everyone seems to have forgotten about NASA. And with good reason: NASA is being surreptitiously privatised, on the way to its eventual elimination and the turning over of America’s entire space program to a private, for-profit company with an agenda diametrically opposed to that of the best interests of the US. [2] But the media are either onside or asleep since it has received little attention, and that only recently.

According to Elon Musk, NASA can’t do anything on its own: “It doesn’t matter how smart someone is within the government, it simply can’t be accomplished with that structure.” [3] Musk said further, “I don’t think NASA could establish a self-sustaining city on Mars simply because it would be cost prohibitive. If NASA did it the traditional government way, the cost of doing it would exceed the federal budget.” Musk seems to have ignored the fact that his “solution” would cost around 100 times the US federal budget. These accusations, of course, are nonsense. It can be easily proven that virtually all privatisations end with higher costs and poorer service. If you want some real-life examples of the “benefits”, read this article on privatisation: [4]

To ensure the completion of NASA’s hijacking, the head of NASA was to be replaced by Jared Isaacman, a close friend of Elon Musk, and a man who possessed no credentials whatever to head such an agency. [5] Further, Isaacman was an investor in Musk’s SpaceX, his company did business with Musk’s companies in both directions, so his position as head of NASA would be defined primarily by his conflicts of interest. SpaceX has so far received at least $14 billion from NASA (I have seen documents claiming as much as $40 billion) of work NASA “subcontracted” to SpaceX. Isaacman’s main function at NASA would be to ensure that most of NASA’s Congressional funding was transferred to his friend’s company. [6]

But neither Donald Trump nor Elon Musk have (or had) the authority to privatise NASA. This was being done by executive order while Congress remained silent. Neither the American government nor the people had approved the gutting of NASA and its effectual privatisation by Elon Musk. This was not only a fraud; it should have been categorized as treason.

Cleaning out and Clearing up

The Department of Government Efficiency isn’t bumbling through an ill-advised reform effort. It’s deliberately sabotaging federal agencies to make way for privatization. Source

To assist the transition, Musk’s DOGE thugs permeated NASA and fired those who objected to the privatisation. [7] This pattern percolated through all of the DOGE fiasco: Trump fired the head of a government organisation, then Elon Musk moved in with his DOGE authority and fired all the staff opposing or obstructing his agenda. It was all illegal, and fraudulent. More than 2,100 NASA staff were terminated, [8] in part to eliminate all pockets of resistance to Musk’s hijacking of NASA, [9] and in part to emasculate the agency and prevent its functioning, and thus justify the transfer of its projects to SpaceX.

The losses were particularly concentrated at the higher levels, those with specialised skills and senior management responsibilities, and those who served in NASA’s core mission sets. One expert said, “You’re losing the managerial and core technical expertise of the agency. What’s the strategy?” The LA Times argued that Musk’s NASA cuts “would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future”. [10] True, but that was the plan.

According to the Wall Street Journal, “After spending months and more than $250 million campaigning in favor of Donald Trump for president, Elon Musk [tried] to advance his plan for humanity to move beyond Earth.” No, not exactly. What Elon Musk did do was to advance his plans to take over NASA, fueled by election gratitude from Donald Trump. The WSJ said further that “[Musk] reached out to his friend Jared Isaacman with a request: would Isaacman be willing to head NASA? … together they could … fulfill a desire the two men shared – sending humans to Mars…” Again, not exactly. The “desire they shared” was to eviscerate NASA and fold it into SpaceX. Mars played no part in this charade. But, “Shortly after this call, Trump announced the nomination of Isaacman as NASA Administrator.”

WSJ again: “Through DOGE, Musk has slashed budgets, laid off employees and eliminated programs. He also had DOGE employees review the operations and personnel of agencies that had investigated Musk’s companies, including the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). At NASA, Musk is making the most drastic adjustments to the agency’s goals to align them with his own – both financially and in terms of his personal ideals.”

To eliminate competition, Musk was determined to cancel the Space Launch System (SLS), a heavy-lift rocket built by Boeing for NASA to send astronauts to the moon. According to the WSJ, “eliminating the SLS could free up billions of dollars for the Mars program”; but actually, it would free up billions for Musk’s SpaceX. “SpaceX executives have told the public in recent weeks that NASA resources will be reallocated to [SpaceX’s] mission.” You can’t be more clear than that.

White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt (Donald Trump’s precocious little tart) said, “As for concerns about potential conflicts of interest between Elon Musk and DOGE, President Trump has indicated that he will not allow conflicts to arise, and Elon himself has committed to recuse himself from any potential conflicts.” How could you tell a lie bigger than that?

There were so many prongs to Musk’s multi-pronged attack on NASA: DOGE functioned as Elon Musk’s enforcement arm. He used its authority to commit dozens of brazen illegalities, thefts, and gangsterisms. It was shocking to watch him progress unimpeded. SpaceX executives were suddenly “embedded” in NASA to “monitor decisions” and to conduct “a Spending Review”, ensuring priority for Musk’s Starship funding over Boeing’s lunar programs. Michael Altenhofen from SpaceX was made a “Special Senior Advisor to the NASA Administrator”, [11] and then NASA Deputy Chief of Staff, but was described internally as “Elon’s channel”. [12]

Many members of Congress objected to Musk’s free access to all of NASA’s files, stating in an official Congressional document that “Any access could provide Mr. Musk’s company … with insider information that would benefit SpaceX at the expense of that company’s competitors and the taxpayers. NASA possesses highly sensitive proprietary data related to the capabilities and contractual obligations of its contractors—some of whom are or could become direct competitors to SpaceX and may compete with SpaceX for forthcoming agency contracts.” [13] And of course, it was precisely that “highly sensitive proprietary data” that Musk and his goons went after. There were many concerns at NASA about the embedded SpaceX staff. One media report stated that NASA employees had “an uncomfortable sense that they were working for Musk and [their only function was] to dole out contracts to SpaceX”. [14]

In a previous essay in this series, [15] I described in detail how DOGE was “a welfare program” for Elon Musk, but it was not only a welfare program, but was also a Trojan Horse.

Musk attacked competitors: his DOGE thugs terminated NASA contracts for other companies (e.g., AT&T) while leaving SpaceX’s $38 billion in federal funding untouched. Boeing and other companies had multi-billion-dollar contracts to build rockets, spaceships and lunar landers and other technology for NASA’s Artemis moon program, but Musk pushed heavily for the abandonment of these contracts – worth more than $4 billion, and transferring the funds to SpaceX (ostensibly for Mars), but in reality for SpaceX’s military programs. Musk specifically targeted Boeing’s Space Launch System (SLS); he desperately wanted to kill it to free the $4 billion contracts for his Starship. [16]

Musk fired more than 1,300 staff from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), privatising the entire weather satellite operations and transferring all weather monitoring to Starlink, a field in which they had zero experience. This was clearly a criminal act, but was his blueprint for NASA – to strip NASA of virtually all its functions and transfer them to his SpaceX. In preparation, Musk canceled nearly all the science missions to weaken NASA’s in-house capabilities; He re-directed contracts for lunar landers from NASA to SpaceX, and Starshield would flow to Musk’s companies under the guise of “commercial efficiency”. NASA was forced to add a new and major commercial contract with SpaceX to use Musk’s Starship for future missions, [17] even though the spacecraft kept exploding in mid-air and had yet to deliver a single payload into space, and thus totally undependable for any kind of mission.

This wasn’t just corruption – it was a hostile takeover of US national space assets by a group of private individuals. It wasn’t even much of a secret; the Wall Street Journal ran an article titled, “Elon Musk’s Mission to Take Over NASA”. [18] Another news source headlined, “Elon Musk Secretly Working to Take Over NASA”. [19] “Elon Musk’s Mission to Take Over NASA”. [20] The Wall Street Journal again: “Elon Musk Brings His Vision for Mars to NASA”. [21] “Despite SpaceX already being NASA’s largest private contractor, Elon Musk is still hellbent on assuming control over the space agency.” [22]

DOGE terminated $4.2 billion in NASA “non-essential contracts” (e.g., consulting services), freeing budgets for SpaceX projects. There was also the privatisation of other critical infrastructure: Musk’s Starlink secured contracts with the FAA for air traffic control – while having had no experience in air traffic control, from Customs and Border Protection for border surveillance, and the General Services Administration for federal internet services (Starlink), positioning SpaceX as indispensable to US infrastructure.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Whitaker testifies before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation at the Rayburn House Office Building on Sept. 24, 2024 in Washington, DC. Source

I don’t want to dwell here on the FAA, but it is of great importance to note that Musk invaded not only NASA but he also attempted to gut the FAA which was responsible for ensuring that Starship launches followed air safety laws. Musk stated that “space-related regulation runs counter to SpaceX’s goals“, and that the FAA had slowed progress on the Starship. When the FAA announced plans to fine SpaceX for launch violations, Musk fired back with a letter to Congress, arguing that the alleged infractions were frivolous and should not be viewed as violations, and threatened to sue the FAA for “regulatory overreach.” After FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker testified to Congress on Musk’s repeated Starship violations, Musk insisting that Whitaker “needs to resign.” [23] This is typical Elon Musk – take arrogantly illegal actions, then threaten, intimidate, and sue any authorities who object.

Then, wearing his DOGE hat, Musk went through the FAA with a hatchet, firing many hundreds of staff, to ensure his total freedom from oversight. Here are a few media articles: “Musk helped fire hundreds of FAA workers”. [24] Hundreds of FAA workers have been fired in the DOGE cuts”. [25] “FAA workers threatened with firing if they ‘impede’ Elon Musk’s SpaceX”. [26] “Musk’s SpaceX Team Unleashed on the FAA After Staff Purge”. [27] Those firings came precisely during the deadliest month of US aviation disasters in more than a decade, at a time when the FAA was well-known to be desperately short-staffed. Criminally fraudulent, but it permitted Musk to eliminate a major source of control over his reckless rocket launches.

Musk’s vendetta against the FAA was so vicious that he attempted to force the FAA to fire most of their air traffic controllers, which would have rendered US air travel inoperable. According to Musk, “SpaceX engineers will help make air travel safer”, but nobody at SpaceX knew anything about air safety or air traffic control. Musk’s radical DOGE division clearly aimed to destroy the FAA, which was responsible for enforcing flight safety laws during Starship launches. According to WIRED sources, Musk’s SpaceX engineers were brought in as “senior advisers” to the administrator of the FAA, immediately after the terminations of hundreds of FAA employees. [28] [29]

The Rise and Fall of Jared Isaacman

I have an analogy for you:

(1) I am very taken with F-1 racing, and I pay someone many thousands of dollars to take me for a ride around a track in an F-1 car.

(2) I enjoy that ride so much that I pay more many thousands of dollars for someone to take me for another ride around a track in an F-1 car.

(3) I have a normal-class driving license.

On what basis do those three items qualify me to be the President of the worldwide Formula One organisation?

Now, let’s look at Jared Isaacman:

(1) He is very taken with space travel, and he pays a whole bunch of money for someone (Elon Musk, in this case) to take him on a sub-orbital ride on a rocket ship.

(2) He enjoys that first ride so much that he pays another whole bunch of money for someone to take him on a second sub-orbital ride on a rocket ship.

(3) He has a private pilot’s license.

Now, on what basis do those three items qualify Jared Isaacman to be nominated as the President (head)of NASA? Exactly. However, Isaacman had qualifications; they just weren’t obvious to a casual observer. Isaacman was a close friend of Elon Musk, and was closely financially-entangled with Musk in many ways. He shared Musk’s passion and agenda for hijacking NASA and funneling all its money to Musk’s SpaceX. And those were all the qualifications he needed.

Records indicate that Musk lobbied very heavily for Isaacman to receive that nomination. Musk needed a puppet in NASA, preferably a financially indebted ally, to control NASA, to ensure the de-funding of any competing space programs, to cut NASA’s science missions, to re-direct all NASA’s Congressional funding and contracts for lunar lander to SpaceX, to effect all the budget cuts to ensure NASA’s permanent weakness, and to ensure that all Starshield funding would flow to Musk’s SpaceX and Starlink under the guise of “commercial efficiency”.

Musk’s DOGE role was to (1) fire everyone at NASA who might have obstructed this agenda, (2) to embed SpaceX staff as puppets in NASA to monitor and ensure compliance with the agenda, and (3) to get his friend Jared Isaacman appointed as head of NASA to enable the full hijacking – executing the scheme of privatizing NASA completely.

The Lobbying Pressure

Trump acquiesced, nominated Jared Isaacman for the head of NASA, and the man had his hearings with a decision expected momentarily. Immediately following that nomination, we were told: “28 former astronauts sign letter of support for Jared Isaacman”, all the letters saying, “We believe that Jared Isaacman is uniquely qualified to lead NASA at this time.” [30] Uh huh. We were given no detail, but were left to form the conclusion that those 28 astronauts – of their own volition, without prompting or payment – each created and wrote their own letter of support and sent it to … nobody knows who.

The NASA Astronaut Fact Book tells us there are 242 surviving former NASA astronauts, [31] and sources tell me that all 242 were approached but only 28 were willing to sign a form letter supporting Isaacman. We are not told who conducted this huge pressure campaign. My sources further claim that NASA scientists felt Isaacman was totally unqualified, with “a complete unfamiliarity with agency operations”. In other words, he knew nothing.

We are also told that various “space industry groups” “lobbied senators aggressively” to secure Isaacman’s confirmation but, on examination, it seems those were not really “space industry groups”, but paid lobbying groups organised to put increased pressure on the Senators to approve Isaacman’s nomination. What these facts tell you is that this was not a trivial matter, that there was a great deal at stake, and that those powerful people hiding in the dark pulled out all the stops to place their man where they needed him.

While 28 former astronauts did indeed sign a letter backing Isaacman, there is much evidence they were lobbied by “SpaceX-affiliated groups”, and not acting independently. This, plus the intensive lobbying of Congress by many groups indicates a coordinated effort to legitimise an otherwise unqualified candidate. Isaacman’s complete lack of public-sector experience or NASA operational knowledge, coupled to his deep financial ties to SpaceX made the nomination look like blatant cronyism – which it was. Isaacman’s nomination was widely seen as Musk’s attempt to control NASA’s $42B budget. As one report noted: “Arranging Isaacman as NASA chief was Musk’s key gambit for personal gain”. But Musk needed an inside loyalist to control NASA.

On May 30, 2025, Elon Musk was terminated from his DOGE appointment, and on May 31, the very next day, and only days before Isaacman’s confirmation by Congress, Trump rescinded Isaacman’s nomination. By that one decision, Donald Trump took an action that dismantled a conspiracy of machinations that had been carefully assembled over nearly two decades, and one which put Elon Musk’s entire business empire into peril. I will explain.

Elon Musk’s Post-DOGE Cataleptic Meltdown

In early February, Musk told investors he expected to be in the Trump White House for only about four months, Post columnist Charles Gasparino reported. Source

Readers will recall Elon Musk’s sudden and surprising attacks on Donald Trump that began only a day after his DOGE assignment ended. Musk claimed to be upset with the tax cuts in Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”, but Trump himself said Musk was fully familiar with the contents of that bill long before it was signed, and that he’d had plenty of time to complain, but didn’t. So, Musk’s rift with Trump could not reasonably have been caused by the bill. Yet Musk condemned Trump’s tax bill as “a disgusting abomination”, encouraged everyone to vote against it, and suggested that those voting in favor should be imprisoned or beheaded (or something similar). Musk must have been very upset about something.

Consider that much of Trump’s reputation, and most of his political capital, were riding on that bill. The internal lobbying for its passage was enormous, and the bill only just passed. If Trump had lost this, it would not have been the end of his career but he would have been severely weakened, and most of the way to being a “lame duck” President. Musk knew the passage of that bill was existentially vital to Trump, which means he was definitely going for Trump’s jugular vein.

Then, Musk posted on Twitter that Trump was in Jeffrey Epstein’s book of “clients”. That personal attack was an exceptionally low blow. This accusation about Trump and Epstein re-opened a can of worms that is now (as of July, 2025) causing Trump enormous political trouble, presaging a possible palace revolt in his base, as well as being personally damaging. Musk’s claim that Trump “appears in Epstein’s papers” and that the “entire Executive protects pedophiles” was a deliberate attack on Trump’s moral credibility and on his personal character – by someone apparently with ‘inside information’.

Shortly after, Musk made headlines again by announcing he was forming a new political party in the US, to give Americans back their “freedom”. [32] For those who don’t know, a third party will normally damage badly one of the existing parties. Since the total number of votes is fixed, the new party’s votes will have to come from one of the two existing parties – usually just one – and can give the other party an easy victory. [33] If Musk’s new party attracts Republicans, Trump could lose his influence in Congress during the mid-term elections and thus become a genuine “lame duck” President.

Then on July 17, 2025, there appeared a birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein bearing Donald Trump’s name, with an outline of a naked woman, depicting her breasts and a “Donald” signature in the place of pubic hair. The letter contained the line: “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.” Trump of course disclaimed the letter and threatened to sue the WSJ and Murdoch for publishing it. [34] [35] [36] [37] I have a powerful suspicion that it was Elon Musk who leaked that “birthday letter” to the WSJ. I can’t prove it, but the pieces fit together too perfectly to be dismissed.

Then on July 23, 2025, CNN released “newly uncovered archived video footage and photos” revealing more details about Donald Trump’s past relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. [37a] The photos confirm, among other things, that Epstein attended Trump’s 1993 wedding to Marla Maples, a fact not widely known. CNN researchers discovered this archived information, but they didn’t say if anyone told them “where to look”.

As a reasonable person, you would have to conclude that the nature and number of these attacks were “disproportionately aggressive” if the only issue were fiscal policy. If you have read Part 11 of this series, Debunking Elon Musk – OpenAI, [38] you will recall Musk’s sustained vindictiveness against Sam Altman and his continuing (years-long) attempts to ruin Altman and to destroy OpenAI. Elon Musk is savagely vindictive when thwarted and, if he follows his normal pattern as he appears to be doing here, we can expect his vendetta against Donald Trump to continue for some time. The Epstein gambit confirms Musk now seeks to burn Trump’s political capital rather than devising a strategy to reclaim NASA—a scorched-earth strategy with no winners. Ultimately this exposes Musk’s modus operandi: when crossed, he’ll burn bridges, destroy reputations, and create chaos – while dressing it up with ideological and moral principles. This is the Sam Altman/OpenAI playbook, just at presidential scale.

The Fall-Out

Elon Musk, has broken his silence on his alleged “falling out” with Donald Trump after stepping down from his role as a Special Government Employee in the Department of Government Efficiency. Source

But what happened? DOGE was clearly a welfare program for Elon Musk, and it seems he got nearly everything he wanted from it, so why complain? We need to look at the results of Isaacman’s nomination withdrawal and the effects on Elon Musk’s business empire.

Consider that Trump had never publicly criticized Musk during DOGE’s operations. Yet, post-DOGE and post-Isaacman, he accused Musk of hypocrisy over subsidies and threatened a DOGE investigation. He also responded to a reporter’s question that he would “look at” the possibility of deporting Elon Musk to South Africa. More than that, Trump hinted at canceling Elon Musk’s government contracts and Tesla subsidies. He posted on his Truth Social: “The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts.” And, since he always doubles down and escalates, Musk’s response was a threat to decommission the Dragon spacecraft that carried cargo and crew to the International Space Station. [39]

Musk’s attack on Trump wasn’t just vindictiveness. It was a desperate bid to reclaim leverage after Isaacman’s ouster exposed his political impotence. By weaponizing the tax bill debate, he hoped to force Trump’s capitulation on NASA. Instead, he triggered a cascade of institutional abandonment, and his empire began unraveling, with collateral casualties everywhere. NASA controlled SpaceX’s revenue lifeline, and Musk’s overreaction reflects terror at losing $4.2 billion in Artemis contracts alone. The real trigger was absolutely the NASA snub – Musk lost control over $42B in space contracts and his NASA privatisation roadmap via Isaacman.

Trump’s threat to cancel Musk’s billions in government contracts, and Musk’s threat to decommission the Dragon spacecraft were the primary items that spooked everyone. It was then obvious that both Trump and Musk were irrational, fickle, erratic, flaky, capricious, would change their minds on a whim, and were thus unreliable and undependable. When dealing with military contracts, those are not virtues. The immediate result was that everybody bailed out.

Financially, Musk’s outbursts cost him dearly. Bloomberg reported that, from this alone, Musk’s wealth suffered a $34 billion hit, just shy of the largest single-day wealth loss, which was also suffered by Musk in November 2021. Tesla closed the day down nearly 15%, representing an almost $150 billion loss in market value. [40] His America Party announcement immediately spooked Tesla ETF investors, and the Tesla ETF (a complex hedge fund arrangement for trading Tesla stock) launch was paused as investors feared Musk’s political “distractions”.

Loss of investor confidence in SpaceX triggered a $700 million share sell-off and credit downgrades, and in an 18% drop in valuation from $210 billion to $186 billion. This jeopardised further capital raises for both SpaceX and Starlink, and SpaceX had to lay off 7% of its workforce at Starship Base to cope with the financial pressures. [41] Isaacman’s ousting delayed SpaceX’s $1.8 billion Starshield spy satellite network, crucial for Pentagon surveillance.

Musk had assured SpaceX investors (e.g., Fidelity, Baillie Gifford) that Isaacman’s appointment would unlock $42B in NASA contracts, accelerating Starship’s militarisation. That failed, and debt covenants were breached. SpaceX’s $13 billion debt requires “government contract growth” milestones. I was told that lenders like JPMorgan now demand accelerated repayments amid NASA uncertainty.

Military partners were abandoning Musk in light of Pentagon distrust. The U.S. Space Force paused Starshield’s $1.8 billion Phase 2 funding, immediately diverting $600M of it to Blue Origin’s “Project Kuiper” of Jeff Bezos. SpaceX’s $102 million contract in the rocket cargo program was handed to ULA’s Vulcan Centaur. After Musk’s ISS threats alienated the DoD, Lockheed won the $2 billion ARRW contract for hypersonic missile testing. Musk’s ISS withdrawal threat also prompted the EU to fund the IRIS² satellite network with Airbus, reducing dependence on Starlink. Australia signed a $1.2 billion pact with Bezos’ Blue Origin for Pacific surveillance satellites, and India fast-tracked agreements with Russia’s Roscosmos after Musk’s “unstable supply chain” comments. And NASA, even with Musk’s “observers” embedded in the system, was brave enough to reduce SpaceX’s share in the National Security Space Launch program from 60% to about 50%.

The military’s quiet pivot to Blue Origin was the real killer – those Starshield contracts were SpaceX’s lifeline. The DoD’s shift to Blue Origin and ULA ended SpaceX’s monopoly on rapid launches indicating a severe drop in US military reliance. Also, Musk’s geopolitical shield has weakened considerably; without US Deep State and institutional protection, Musk faces EU antitrust probes and almost certain Chinese ASAT targeting. You can see that the collapse of Musk’s NASA power play reverberated far beyond his feud with Trump.

The new competitive reality is that Musk’s political wars have turned SpaceX from a Pentagon darling into a liability. Blue Origin’s New Glenn and ULA’s Vulcan captured 47% of Space Force launches by offering “stable leadership”. As Lockheed’s CEO stated: “Space is no longer a Musk monopoly; it’s a resilience game.” Musk’s sudden weakness is that he needs government money more than they need him now. The “America Party” is just noise while ULA and Blue Origin eat his lunch on actual contracts.

And there is more bad news. Elon Musk’s entire empire is plagued with financial contagion, investor flight, and debt crises.

Starlink

60 Starlink satellites in orbit before separating from Falcon 9’s second stage (Credit: SpaceX)

According to SpaceX’s filing data with the FCC in June 2025, nearly 600 Starlink satellites have been deorbited since 2020, more than 60% of those lost contacts occurring at the peak of solar activity in 2024. The satellites were simply subjected to thermal loads that far exceeded Starlink’s (Musk’s) design standards That large-scale loss has hit SpaceX’s profits. Each Starlink satellite costs about $250,000, so the hardware loss alone was nearly $150 million, not to mention the liquidated damages and loss of revenue and market share caused by service interruptions.

Tesla

Sales are consistently dropping month by month in every mark.

Until Musk’s DOGE activity, Tesla was riding high, with nearly astronomical share values and strong sales. Tesla was the “cash cow” for the companies in Musk’s empire, but Elon single-handedly changed all that nearly overnight. Tesla sales have cratered; profits are down by 71% and sales are plummeting all over the world. European sales down about 70%, Canada 80%, China 50%, and the US (with no competition) down nearly 25%. Sales are consistently dropping month by month in every market. The Cybertruck is a Musk vanity project with one foot already in the grave, with too many problems to list here, with resale values falling off a cliff, and has maybe one year before burial. Projected annual sales of 250,000 were about 95% too high. Musk’s “autonomous self-driving” is floundering everywhere, riddled with accidents and deaths, and his Robotaxi is off to a start that is both rocky and delusional. Both of those were hoped (and hyped) to be roaring money-makers but are failing. Tesla’s Optimus robot is a prototype only, far behind schedule and seems about as dependable as Grok. To say that Tesla is no longer Musk’s cash cow is a bit of an understatement. In fact, Musk shifted $200 million from SpaceX to Tesla (ostensibly for “batteries and avionics”), to help keep it afloat.

Neuralink

Neuralink is likely okay, given its external funding and DARPA mind-control contracts, but is also small and irrelevant.

The Boring Company

TBC is just a Musk vanity project and likely only a year away from insolvency, with only one customer, almost no revenue, and no prospects on the horizon. It is surviving partly from Musk shifting $180 million from SpaceX and more millions from Tesla to keep it afloat.

xAI, Grok, and Twitter

This one is very serious. xAI is bleeding more than $1 billion a month with no relief in sight. Musk managed one funding round of $6 billion, but stated that would last “only a few months”. The situation is dire because Elon Musk is still fighting his war with Sam Altman, determined to prove that “mine is bigger than yours”. To this end, Musk foolishly spent $4 billion to $5 billion on his “1-billion-GPU supercomputer”, money that xAI did not have. It was also reported that Musk diverted significant numbers of Tesla AI chips to xAI, yet another indication of a lack of funds. In spite of all the hype, Grok is substandard and subscriptions (even for the $30/month uncensored porn version) [42] [43] are not a meaningful revenue source. And Twitter (I refuse to call it “X”) is reportedly still hemorrhaging users and advertising revenue.

The result is that investors are wary, and fleeing. During the last fund-raising attempt of $5 billion, xAI could raise only $3 billion, and Musk had to transfer the final $2 billion from SpaceX. SpaceX was not drowning, but it didn’t have $2 billion in cash to throw down a hole. Musk took the risk because he expected Isaacman would be heading NASA and immediately begin funneling billions of dollars of NASA’s money to SpaceX. That didn’t happen and, with the fall-out from the Trump wars, SpaceX has lost many more billions in contracts.

Musk’s entire empire is suffering financial, political, and public distress. Civilians are still burning Teslas, Grok is not doing so well, and now SpaceX and Starlink are losing money, support, trust, and satellites, all at the same time. A critical contradiction in SpaceX’s actions was laying off 7% of its Texas workforce and slashed R&D for civilian Starlink terminals to conserve cash – while simultaneously wasting $2 billion in Musk’s xAI venture. This comes amidst a cascade of financial and reputational crises across Musk’s empire – Tesla’s decline, Grok’s struggles, SpaceX’s military contract losses, and Starlink’s vulnerabilities.

Meanwhile, Pentagon contracts are shifting to competitors – $600M Starshield funding diverted to Blue Origin, Rocket Cargo contract lost to ULA. Tesla’s crises are already well-documented. SpaceX’s valuation surge was built on classified military contracts, but Musk’s political missteps have triggered institutional abandonment, Space Force explicitly citing “volatility risk” as contracts evaporate.

If we combine all the financial red flags with Musk’s self-inflicted political wounds and Grok’s unsustainable $300/month pricing, the interdependencies in Musk’s corporate ecosystem become liabilities rather than strengths. The $2 billion xAI transfer appears particularly reckless given SpaceX’s current crisis, and resembles panic-driven doubling down rather than strategy. This cognitive disconnect suggests leadership in crisis mode, making emotional decisions contrary to business logic.

Ultimately, the evidence points toward a metastasising crisis: the military’s retreat exposes SpaceX’s commercial unprofitability, Tesla can no longer serve as a cash cow, and Musk’s political capital depletion removes government backstops. It is possible that Elon Musk’s empire lacks sufficient pillars to avoid collapse. This could mark the beginning of an irreversible downward spiral.

It is easy to make the case that Musk’s empire is caught in a self-reinforcing collapse cycle, with cash crises in one company forcing reckless bets in others. Political missteps accelerate contract losses, starving revenue. Operational failures (satellite losses, Starship delays) undermine competitiveness. Public distrust intensifies, further depressing sales and recruitment. Musk is facing a revenue drought (everywhere but Neuralink), technological stagnation (Telsa, Optimus), customer defections (Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter), market share erosion (Tesla, SpaceX), brand toxicity resulting in Tesla vandalism and Twitter attrition. As one Pentagon strategist warned: “Musk built castles on subsidised sand, and now the tide is going out.”

Now you can understand Musk’s nuclear response to the revocation of Isaacman’s nomination and the subsequent loss of NASA.

Why Did Trump Change Lanes on NASA?

There is much to tell here, all relating to the enthronement and canonization of Elon Musk. As I have frequently stated elsewhere, Elon Musk had powerful backers (We can call it “The Deep State”) decades ago; it was they who so carefully built Musk’s image to the point where much of the American public appeared to worship the man, and built his reputation and public status to the point where they could push their DOGE fiasco (aka Elon Musk’s Welfare Program) onto Donald Trump and the American public, and expect success. In simple terms, they overplayed their hand, and they failed.

I have written often about a “media flood” and the fact that these are always carefully planned from a central source. This was true in spades for Elon Musk, whose public image was hyped to such a crescendo that Musk was photographed sitting in the President’s chair at his desk.

Remember that Musk contributed the best part of $300 million to back Trump’s election, attended many rallies in support, and also used Twitter as a megaphone to rally his followers. His support may well have been crucial to Trump’s election. “Time Magazine’s issue, “How Elon Musk Became a Kingmaker”, marks the second time in recent months (2025) that Musk appeared on the magazine’s cover, as “Citizen Musk” with a feature styling Musk as a “kingmaker” over his role in the presidential election. [44] “The pair of covers suggests that it is Musk, not Trump, who is the real power behind the proverbial throne.” [45] The Washington Post called Musk the “shadow president” of the United States. The Jewish YNet News echoed the sentiment with a headline “Elon Musk is America’s shadow president”. [46] Time published a composite photo of Musk sitting behind Trump’s desk, but there are real photos of the same event, as below:

I wrote earlier that Musk used his DOGE authority to commit dozens of brazen illegalities, thefts, and gangsterisms, that it was “shocking to watch him progress unimpeded”. That was not an exaggeration. Elon Musk not only ignored the legal authority of Congress, but dismissed it as if it didn’t even exist. Even worse, Musk totally sidelined Trump as well, acting also as if the man and the position didn’t exist. Elon Musk, in what could only have been a massive fit of narcissistic delusion, was conducting himself as the de facto dictator of the United States. He not only let his delusions and ambitions run wild on the domestic scene, but he grossly interfered in foreign relations as well. His arrogant and reckless attitude came back to bite him everywhere, as you have seen.

Elon Musk sent his goons through every government department and fired everyone who disagreed with him or who challenged him. He literally stole entire government departments and transferred them (and their money) to his own companies, canceling government contracts with his competitors in the process. When any Cabinet Secretary or Department head challenged Musk’s invasions, Musk demanded they “resign immediately”. When the courts declared his actions illegal and/or against the US Constitution, Musk brazenly demanded those judges be impeached.

According to media reports, Federal agencies were ordered to reinstate tens of thousands of federal workers, after which Musk threw a tantrum and immediately demanded the impeachment of the federal judges. According to Musk, “The worst judges have to be impeached, or we don’t have real democracy in America”. [47] Of course, the “worst judges” are those who don’t decide cases in Elon Musk’s favor. According to Reuters, Musk had been “on a campaign to discredit federal judges” who oppose whatever he does. Reuters stated that in only a very short time, Musk lashed out at judges in more than 30 Twitter posts, calling them “corrupt”, “radical”, and “evil”, after they gave rulings that curtailed some of his more egregious DOGE actions. In speaking to Reuters, those judges said they have real concerns for their personal safety, “in light of Musk’s social media threats”.

The White House WWE fight

Source

Musk had unsuccessfully pushed for Howard Lutnick as Treasury Secretary (You don’t want to know my opinion of Harold Lutnick), but Trump appointed Scott Bessent instead, with Musk (true to form) then vindictively attacking Bessent at every opportunity. During one famous White House session, Musk and Bessent were involved in a heated shouting match during a confrontation about power over the IRS, with the men screaming “F**k you.” at each other. [48] Witnesses said the Secret Service had to step between them to prevent a fist-fight. And Bessent wasn’t the only Cabinet Secretary taking violent opposition to Musk during this meeting. The tension between Elon Musk and all the Cabinet Secretaries and agency heads was, as we say, “so thick you could have cut it with a knife”.

To anyone watching the video of the confrontations with Musk in the West Wing, it was obvious that Trump’s status was that of a “Musk Proxy”. All the evidence suggests Trump turned on Musk primarily due to a loss of control of his presidency. DOGE was initially sold to Trump as a way to “drain the swamp”, but it became a shadow government run by Musk and his stooges/goons, backed by the Deep State. When Trump realized he was being bypassed, he reasserted authority by halting DOGE’s staffing demands and withdrawing Isaacman’s nomination.

After that series of explosions, Trump had no choice but to make a very public effort rein in DOGE and Musk, entirely due to Musk’s arrogance in wielding such unprecedented authority normally reserved for Congress and the President. [49] He convened a special Cabinet meeting (with Elon Musk in the room) to tell the heads of the agencies that they – NOT Elon Musk – were in charge of their agencies and departments. [50] Trump pointedly told his officials that Musk’s role was to make recommendations and not unilateral decisions, whether about staffing or policy matters. [51] Trump told his secretaries, “Keep all the people you want, everybody that you need.” Salon Magazine immediately ran an article titled, “DOGE deflated: Elon Musk has lost his political power”. [52] The DOGE rose had definitely lost its bloom.

Ultimately, the withdrawal of Isaacman’s nomination (and the failed hijacking of NASA) exposed a failed corporate coup. This was a Deep State power play that unraveled. If Trump truly supported it, he wouldn’t have publicly humiliated Musk by overruling him. The agenda would have worked but for two things: (1) Elon Musk’s lack of “situational awareness”, leading to many very stupid pronouncements and actions that alienated almost everyone at home and abroad, and (2) the fact that Donald Trump is easily as arrogant and narcissistic as Elon Musk, and couldn’t bear the public humiliation of being Musk’s “proxy”. This exposed DOGE as a smokescreen for Musk’s privatization agenda and, almost certainly, Trump withdrew support to avoid appearing controlled by Musk. Plus, Trump had good reason to worry about the consequences of trying to rein in a mega-influencer who could turn on him if unhappy.

Various media reported that Musk’s push for Isaacman as NASA chief was undermined by persons leaking his Democratic donations, but that was never true. Isaacman’s political stance and donations to Democrats were public record before his nomination, so using it as the official reason was a convenient pretext to remove a nominee who would answer to Musk, not Trump. The broader picture is that Trump had to reassert his dominance after Musk’s DOGE overreach, and Isaacman’s fall was mostly collateral damage from Trump’s reassertion of control of his own presidency.

There was much dissent to Isaacman’s nomination but it was silenced, and the media failed once again to tell the true story. Career NASA scientists were on public record as opposing Isaacman’s nomination, but were overruled by political appointees. White House personnel chief Sergio Gor had had repeated conflicts with Musk over his many appointment recommendations and pushed strongly for Isaacman’s withdrawal after Musk left. Gor correctly saw Musk’s appointment recommendations as a vehicle for his permanent influence in Trump’s government, attempting to place ideological allies and/or puppets in every powerful position. The record suggests that no one except Elon Musk wanted (or needed) Jared Isaacman.

The Jews and NASA

This final part is the “Anti-Semitic” portion of my essay. For reader convenience I thought I would save it and put it all in one place.

I have written elsewhere that the “Deep State”, aka International Khazar Jewry, have been building up Elon Musk for the past 20 or perhaps 30 years. As noted earlier in this essay, they did a good job, taking Musk to the point where he was canonized as the US’ “shadow president”, and was accepted by many people as a genius on par with Stephen Hawking, and the world’s greatest innovator who would soon take us all to Mars. Consider this item from nearly 20 years ago:

The 2008 Contract: a De Facto Bailout

I want to give you an analogy to make a point. A young man gets his driver’s license …

(1) takes father’s car for a drive, crashes it

(2) takes father’s car for another drive, crashes it again

(3) takes father’s car for another drive, crashes it again

(4) takes father’s car for another drive, doesn’t crash it

(5) father now swears son is expert driver, no worries., Has unlimited use of the car. Can take children to school and family on extended trips.

How realistic is that? In real life, the father wouldn’t let the kid touch his car again.

Now a real-life example.

(1) SpaceX launches a Falcon 1 rocket; fireball explosion (“rapid unscheduled disassembly”)

(2) SpaceX launches another Falcon 1 rocket; another rapid unscheduled disassembly

(3) SpaceX launches another Falcon 1 rocket; another rapid unscheduled disassembly

(4) SpaceX launches a fourth Falcon 1 rocket; not a success, but no rapid unscheduled disassembly

(5) NASA certifies SpaceX Falcon 1 rocket as eminently dependable, no worries. Immediately signs a 16-year, $1.6 billion contract with SpaceX for cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station.

How realistic is that? With NASA’s long history of extreme caution and focus on safety, why would they do such a thing? Consider Boeing’s treatment: after Starliner’s 2024 helium leaks stranded two astronauts (without a rapid unscheduled disassembly), NASA demanded full revalidation and delayed Boeing’s next mission for a full two years. Yet NASA awarded its $1.6 billion ISS cargo contract to SpaceX immediately after three consecutive Falcon 1 explosive failures. Why the double standard? If it doesn’t make sense for the father, why does it make sense for NASA? You know it can’t happen that way. After those failures, NASA would have needed a long history of good results before SpaceX could be trusted with ISS supply missions. NASA’s action was dangerous, reckless, and irrational unless motivated by hidden agendas.

For background, SpaceX was nearly bankrupt after three failed Falcon 1 launches in 2008. The company had exhausted all its private funding and had only 72 hours of cash left. NASA’s SpaceX contract was not a vote of confidence in Musk’s ability to produce rockets that didn’t explode, but meant only to rescue SpaceX from imminent bankruptcy. Someone exerted a lot of pressure on NASA: that contract was the result of collusion between the Deep State and Musk’s ventures. The reckless driver analogy holds: NASA handed keys to a wreck-prone driver because he had powerful friends.

Even more; Post-2008, Falcon 9 still suffered 6 failures in 49 launches – a failure rate considered totally unacceptable for traditional contractors, but ignored for SpaceX. Many red flags were ignored: In 2015, a Falcon 9 exploded during an ISS cargo mission. In 2016, a pad explosion destroyed a $200M Israeli satellite. NASA imposed no penalties, and continued payments. And no compensation to the Israelis for the satellite loss, either.

Let’s look at DOGE. If you watched the videos of the White House sessions, and read the media articles, it was obvious that DOGE was not the brainchild of Donald Trump. It was so painfully evident that he was merely an uninformed bystander without even the authority to intervene. It was also obvious that Elon Musk had his own private agenda and was in no way taking orders from Donald Trump. This is especially true if you consider the freedom with which Musk marauded through all the Government Departments and his dismissive treatment of Trump’s Cabinet Secretaries. It wasn’t for nothing that Time magazine and others stated that Elon Musk was “the power behind the throne”. He wasn’t, but he was taking his marching orders from the people who were that power, and he felt secure enough to literally bypass both Congress and the President.

Consider NASA. I wrote earlier that Jared Isaacman had credentials from being a friend of Elon Musk. That part was true, but his major credential was that he is a Jew, loyal to the tribe, and fully prepped for the hijacking of NASA. I wrote above that Musk had “embedded” many engineers and others into NASA and the FAA to ‘monitor decisions’ and to conduct ‘spending reviews’. From what I can determine from my sources, those embedded staff were all Jews, or nearly all.

If we connect all the dots, the conclusion is unavoidable that DOGE was a failed corporate coup, a Deep State (International Jewry) power play that unraveled. The frightening part is that it unraveled mostly because Elon Musk was totally out of control, so much so that he literally forced Donald Trump to reassert his authority (and regain his Presidency) by halting DOGE’s staffing demands and withdrawing Isaacman’s nomination. Had Musk been a trifle less arrogant, it might have ended very differently.

There is also the matter of recommendations for appointments to various Cabinet and other positions (in addition to Jared Isaacman at NASA). Elon Musk made a great many of these, and pushed some of them very hard. One of these, for example, was the proposed nomination of Harold Lutnick (a Jew) as Treasury Secretary, which I discussed earlier. This appointment was of no concern to Musk. He had no knowledge nor any stake in most of the Cabinet recommendations he pushed at Trump. It became very evident from so many of Musk’s actions that he didn’t know enough about government to be able to make them on his own. As I said, he was taking direction – from the Jews in the Deep State.

Elon Musk rips Trump personnel director Sergio Gor as ‘a snake’. Source

I wrote earlier that White House personnel chief Sergio Gor had had repeated conflicts with Musk over his many appointment recommendations. Gor correctly saw Musk’s appointment recommendations as a vehicle for his permanent influence in Trump’s government, attempting to place ideological allies and/or puppets in every powerful position – people who would report to Musk and not to the President.

Think for a moment about the pressure campaign exerted on Congress to approve the nomination of Jared Isaacman as head of NASA. Who canvassed the more than 200 astronauts in attempts to obtain their recommendation? This could be no one other than the Jewish Mafia; no one else would have had a stake in the man’s appointment. We were also told that various “space industry groups” “lobbied senators aggressively” to secure Isaacman’s confirmation but, on examination, it seems those were not really “space industry groups”, but mere Jewish lobbying groups organised by the same people, to put increased pressure on the Senators to approve Isaacman’s nomination.

What these facts tell you is that this was not a trivial matter, that there was a great deal at stake, and that those powerful people hiding in the dark pulled out all the stops to place their man where they needed him. Those powerful people very badly needed Isaacman as head of NASA and made an extravagant effort to create pressure on the Senate hearing. The heavily-orchestrated support for Isaacman is prima facie evidence of Jewish backing.

Some readers will correctly note what appears to be confusion in all this. If we really have a “Deep State”, i.e. our International Jewry, manipulating events from behind the scenes, why do we have what appears to be multiple factions competing with each other? Well, think of a US Presidential election. We have one group of Jews financing and promoting one candidate and another group financing the other. And yes, they actually compete against each other, giving an impression of “real democracy”. But it’s essentially just a hoax. They don’t care which candidate wins, because they have already bought and paid for both. The results – for them – will be the same no matter who wins.

This is essentially the same with the US space programs. We have Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, and others. Each will receive financing and heavy media support, and they will actually compete against each other. But, just as with the elections, it doesn’t matter who wins because all candidates are bought and paid for. The result for International Jewry is the same no matter who wins. And, so long as you remain useful to their purposes, as Jeffrey Epstein was for decades, you will have full immunity from legal repercussions. If you cease being useful, or become a liability – like Ghislane Maxwell, they will remorselessly throw you under the bus.

We would normally expect something as important as the hijacking of NASA to be under strict orders with everyone reading from the same script. On the surface, it would seem foolish and misguided to have many independent factions because they could be working against each other, leading to unexpected consequences. But the results are seldom “unexpected”. We can think of Blue Origin’s sudden $2.4 billion Space Force contract amid SpaceX’s struggles, and that suggests deliberate counterbalancing by unseen hands.

It is more a matter of risk mitigation, of what we might call “resource optimisation” by having competing groups (all under our influence). And it also functions very effectively as “plausible deniability” if the “conspiracy theorists” discover our plot. These factions create noise that very effectively distracts us from the broader goals being pursued. Watching Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos suing each other over a Space Force contract, blinds us to the overall agenda. We interpret those events as two wealthy megalomaniacs brawling, and miss the inevitable end result. This is just a kind of “controlled chaos” for which Jews are famous. We bankroll different rivals to dominate different niches; we let the factions lobby and fight, and we exploit every crisis. Musk pushes his Mars theatrics while the Pentagon shifts to Blue Origin for more dependability, and SpaceX’s financial freefall really forces NASA into a dependency.

These “unexpected consequences” aren’t failures, but pressure tests. When one faction fails, the other advances. The nice part is that the fluidity of these motions completely disguises the underlying machinations, and makes the hijacking difficult to see or trace, much less to stop. This factionalism is one of the Jews’ greatest strengths: it looks like disarray, but it’s merely a kind of “decentralised execution”.

When we have a “foreign power” seeking to privatise US space assets, their use of competing factions reflects real-world corporate and political dynamics. This is how things are done, with the bureaucratic noise masking the enormous consolidation taking place, and this explains why it is always so difficult to connect the dots. The general public won’t see the overall result until it’s much too late, but already NASA and the US military are heavily reliant on these private Jewish contractors for most of their basic operations. If Isaacman’s nomination had held, NASA would have been gone, but his demise left a NASA paralysed with interim administrators – all Jews from SpaceX – and the privatisation and hijacking will even be accelerated. This is what happened to the NOAA and the FAA. The factions never actually collide because they are all following the same agenda with a kind of coordinated permission.

There is so much real-world evidence of factional coordination. Musk’s overreach caused Isaacman’s demise, but yet both factions won; SpaceX kept the Artemis contracts, while Blue Origin gained the lunar lander work. NASA’s staff was cut to the bone, but Space Force immediately expanded, simply redirecting all the government talent to the private Jewish contractors. The apparent disarray is orchestrated, the Jewish puppet-masters achieving their desired results with no accountability. And this makes the privatisation irreversible. NASA’s budget cuts and brain drain make it a shell; its remaining functions may soon be auctioned to the highest bidder. NASA really has been hijacked, along with many crucial portions of the US space program, and done under a perfect smokescreen that was designed to embed Jewish corporate control over “the final frontier”.

Next Essay: SpaceX and Starlink

Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 34 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chap. 2 — Dealing with Demons).

His full archive can be seen at

https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/

He can be contacted at: 2186604556@qq.com

NOTES – Part 15

[1] Elon Musk and NASA: The Space Privatization Shift
https://thewashingtoneye.com/the-privatization-of-space-elon-musks-takeover-of-nasas-future/

[2] Elon Musk and NASA: The Space Privatization Shift
https://thewashingtoneye.com/the-privatization-of-space-elon-musks-takeover-of-nasas-future/

[3] Why NASA is turning to Elon Musk
https://money.cnn.com/2014/09/18/technology/space-shuttle-nasa/index.html

[4] A Further Look at Privatisation
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/5647/

[5] Trump’s unconventional NASA pick signals Mars intentions in confirmation hearing
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/09/science/nasa-administrator-hearing-jared-isaacman/index.html

[6] ‘Further and faster’: Why Trump’s NASA pick is sending shock waves through the space community
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/06/science/nasa-chief-trump-pick-jared-isaacman

[7] Elon Musk says NASA staff ‘face being fired’ if they don’t respond to six word demand
https://www.unilad.com/technology/nasa/elon-musk-doge-nasa-federal-staff-resignation-email-010880-20250224

[8] Over 2,000 senior staff set to leave NASA under agency push
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/09/nasa-staff-departures-00444674

[9] More Than 2,100 NASA Staff Are Getting Gutted
https://futurism.com/nasa-staff-layoff-trump

[10] Trump’s NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2025-06-09/trumps-nasa-cuts-would-destroy-decades-of-science-and-wipe-out-its-future

[11] DOGE Personnel Arrive at NASA to Conduct Spending Review
https://www.flyingmag.com/doge-personnel-arrive-at-nasa-to-conduct-spending-review/

[12] Michael Altenhofen Is NASA Deputy Chief of Staff
https://nasawatch.com/personnel-news/michael-altenhofen-is-nasa-deputy-chief-of-staff/

[13] February 6th, 2025, Congressional letter to NASA
https://democrats-science.house.gov/imo/media/doc/SST%20RM%20Lofgren%20and%20Foushee%20-%20Letter%20to%20Acting%20Administrator%20Petro%20-%20DOGE%20Classified%20Access%20-%202.6.25.pdf

[14] Concern about SpaceX influence at NASA grows with new appointee
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/as-nasa-flies-into-turbulence-the-agency-could-use-a-steady-hand/

[15] Debunking Elon Musk – Part 13 — Neuralink, DOGE, Twitter
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/21803/

[16] DOGE Personnel Arrive at NASA to Conduct Spending Review
https://www.flyingmag.com/doge-personnel-arrive-at-nasa-to-conduct-spending-review/

[17] NASA signs new contract to use SpaceX’s Starship
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/nasa-signs-new-contract-to-use-spacexs-starship-even-though-it-keeps-blowing-up

[18] Elon Musk’s Mission to Take Over NASA—and Mars – WSJ
https://www.wsj.com/business/elon-musk-nasa-mars-space-travel-d3978a7b

[19] Elon Musk Secretly Working to Take Over NASA
https://futurism.com/elon-musk-working-nasa

[20] Elon Musk’s Mission to Take Over NASA
https://so.html5.qq.com/page/real/search_news?docid=70000021_11367eaa06046952&faker=1

[21] Elon Musk Brings His Vision for Mars to NASA
https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/google-news-update/elon-musk-brings-his-vision-for-mars-to-nasa/5b0bd307-cbbd-4b78-a783-d9d1586a200c

[22] NASA signs new contract to use SpaceX’s Starship —
https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/nasa-signs-new-contract-to-use-spacexs-starship-even-though-it-keeps-blowing-up

[23] SpaceX’s Elon Musk calls on FAA chief to resign
https://www.space.com/spacex-elon-musk-faa-administrator-resign

[24] Musk helped fire hundreds of FAA workers.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-spacex-air-traffic-control-b2700192.html

[25] A SpaceX team will help overhaul the U.S. air traffic control systems
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-spacex-air-traffic-control-b2700192.html

[26] FAA workers threatened with firing if they ‘impede’ Elon Musk’s SpaceX …
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/faa-workers-threatened-with-firing-if-they-impede-elon-musk-s-spacex-federal-deal-report/ar-AA1AkIIk

[27] Musk’s SpaceX Team Unleashed on the FAA After Staff Purge
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/musk-spacex-team-unleashed-faa-193638179.html

[28] SpaceX engineers brought on at FAA after probationary employees were fired
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/spacex-engineers-brought-on-at-faa-after-probationary-employees-were-fired/

[29] Details emerge on SpaceX engineers at the FAA
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/weekly-transportation/2025/03/03/details-emerge-on-spacex-engineers-at-the-faa-00206882

[30] Nearly 30 former NASA astronauts sign letter of support for Jared Isaacman
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/nearly-30-former-astronauts-sign-letter-of-support-for-new-nasa-lead/ar-AA1BA37T

[31] NASA Astronaut Fact Book
https://www.nasa.gov/reference/astronaut-fact-book/

[32] Musk says he is forming new political party after fallout with Trump
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/05/politics/elon-musk-political-party

[33] Elon Musk says he has formed a new U.S. political party, the ‘America Party’
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/05/elon-musk-america-party-democrats-trump.html

[34] Trump’s Birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein
https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-jeffrey-epstein-birthday-letter-we-have-certain-things-in-common-f918d796?mod=hp_lead_pos7

[35] Wall Street Journal: Birthday letter to Epstein bore Trump’s signature, drawing of naked woman
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/17/politics/epstein-birthday-letter-trump

[36] WSJ says Trump wrote racy birthday letter to Epstein
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/17/trump-epstein-wall-street-journal-00461787

[37] Wall Street Journal: Lewd letter bearing Trump’s name was given to Epstein
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/17/politics/video/trump-jeffrey-epstein-letter-drawing-wsj-ebof-digvid

Exclusive: Newly discovered photos and video shed fresh light on Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/22/politics/kfile-trump-epstein-photos-footage

[38] Debunking Elon Musk – Part 11 — OpenAI
https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/21751/

[39] Elon Musk threatened to decommission Dragon spacecraft. Here’s what that would mean for NASA
https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/elon-musk-threatened-decommission-dragon-spacecraft-nasa/story?id=122568163

[40] Elon Musk suffers one of the largest wealth losses ever as Trump feud escalates
https://www.salon.com/2025/06/06/elon-musk-suffers-one-of-the-largest-wealth-losses-ever-as-feud-escalates/

[41] Trump retaliation? Musk’s “Starlink” fell into the air one after another and “dropped the chain”!
https://www.163.com/dy/article/K1L0KM130556D1ZF.html

[42] Elon Musk’s AI Grok Offers Sexualized Anime Bot | TIME
https://time.com/7302790/grok-ai-chatbot-elon-musk/

[43] Grok gets AI companion that’s down to go NSFW with you
https://me.mashable.com/tech/58284/grok-gets-ai-companion-thats-down-to-go-nsfw-with-you#google_vignette

[442] How Elon Musk Became a Kingmaker
https://time.com/7177802/elon-musk-donald-trump-2024-election/

[45] Time magazine’s provocative cover puts Elon Musk behind Trump’s desk
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/07/media/time-magazine-elon-musk-cover-trump/

[46] Elon Musk is America’s shadow president
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/skb11evpzjx

[47] Elon Musk Immediately Calls for Judges to Be Impeached After Rulings Overturn DOGE Firings
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elon-musk-immediately-calls-for-judges-to-be-impeached-after-rulings-overturn-doge-firings/

[48] Musk and Bessent had ‘WWE fight’ in White House – Axios
https://www.rt.com/news/616181-musk-bessent-white-house-clash/

[49] Donald Trump is reining in DOGE
https://fortune.com/2025/03/07/donald-trump-elon-musk-doge-job-cuts/

[50] Trump tells cabinet secretaries they, not Musk, will make decisions
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-tells-cabinet-secretaries-they-not-musk-are-charge-staff-cuts-2025-03-06/

[51] Trump tells Cabinet members that they’re in charge, not Musk:
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-tells-cabinet-charge-musk-sources/story?id=119525584

[52] DOGE deflated: Elon Musk has lost his political power
https://www.salon.com/2025/05/21/doge-deflated-elon-musk-has-lost-his-political-power/

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