Elon Musk says stranded ISS astronauts were ‘left up there for political reasons’ by Biden
WASHINGTON — Elon Musk accused former President Joe Biden of leaving two astronauts stranded aboard the International Space Station for “political reasons.”
“They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good,” the world’s richest man said while seated next to President Trump in a joint interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday night.
Musk’s SpaceX in September launched a Crew Dragon capsule to rescue the pair, and it docked at the space station, but NASA opted to stall its return.
The billionaire told Hannity the craft will return to Earth in “about four weeks” after the plans were “postponed kind of to a ridiculous degree.”
“At the president’s request, or instruction, we are accelerating the return of the astronauts,” Musk said.
“We have brought astronauts back from the space station many times before, and always with success,” he added, saying that his team still would be “extremely cautious.”
“They didn’t have the go-ahead with Biden,” Trump said.
“He was going to leave them in space. I think he was going to leave them in space … He didn’t want the publicity.”
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were stranded in June when an issue was found with Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which returned without them.
They were supposed to remain aboard the station for just eight days, but have now been there for 258.
NASA said in December the two astronauts would have to wait for yet another SpaceX rescue vehicle to arrive with replacement scientists “no earlier than late March,” and then would have to go through an unspecified handover period before finally departing.
Trump said in a social media post last month that Biden “abandoned” Wilmore and Williams — prompting their denials.
“We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded,” Wilmore insisted to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, adding, “I understand why others may think that.”
Williams said, “It was a little bit longer stay than we had expected,” but “we’ve made the most of it.”
The joint interview featuring Trump and Hannity was filmed last week at the White House and focused largely on Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative to trim federal spending.
