Billionaire Elon Musk was surpised this Tuesday after the Trump administration he personally bankrolled with $277 million began threatening the very NASA contracts enriching his space company.
Musk called Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy both a two-digit IQ individual and Sean Dummy after Duffy told CNBC Monday that SpaceX was falling behind schedule on its $2.9 billion lunar lander contract. The billionaire demanded answers about whether someone whose biggest claim to fame was climbing trees should run America's space program, referring to Duffy's world championship lumberjack credentials.
Sources report Musk remains genuinely perplexed that the president he installed might actually implement the government efficiency cuts he himself championed while co-chairing the Department of Government Efficiency. NASA lost approximately 4,000 employees through deferred resignation programs Musk helped engineer, reducing the agency's workforce by nearly one-fifth—apparently without Musk considering this might affect his own contracts.
Duffy announced he would open the contract to competitors like Blue Origin, stating on CNBC, "We're not going to wait for one company" and emphasizing America's race against China to return to the moon. The Transportation Secretary's decision to prioritize competition and results over loyalty to mega-donors has left Musk shaken.
The SpaceX founder, who became the largest political donor in the 2024 cycle specifically to influence government spending decisions affecting his companies, expressed genuine confusion that those decisions might not always favor him personally. Musk posted "Sean Dummy is trying to kill NASA!" Tuesday, seemingly unaware of the irony that his own workforce reduction initiatives had already accomplished significant damage to the agency.
