Trump – Musk feud could be a win for Alabama

June 5, 2025 – WASHINGTON, D.C. – The very odd partnership between the world's richest man - billionaire tycoon Elon Musk - and President Donald J. Trump (R) came crashing down last week in spectacular fashion last week with Musk calling Trump's "big beautiful bill" to extend the Trump tax cuts and keep the government funded to the end of the fiscal year and "abomination" and Trump saying that Musk opposed the bill because it cut expensive subsidies for Musk's electric car business (Tesla).

One casualty of the Musk-Trump feud may be the space program, which has become dependent on Musk's SpaceX rocket company to get American astronauts back and forth from the International Space Station (I.S.S.). Trump threatened to cancel all of Musk's contracts and Musk threatened to ground his SpaceX Dragon ships in retaliation. Both are probably empty bluffs; but if SpaceX does suffer, Alabama is poised to gain.

First of all, United Launch Alliance (ULA) builds its rockets in Decatur, Alabama. The joint venture between Lockheed and Boeing builds rockets for the U.S. Defense Department and could potentially compete for any contracts that SpaceX loses or fails to compete for. Boeing's failed Starliner spacecraft was largely built in Alabama at the ULA plant. There were issues last year with astronauts Butch and Sonny momentarily losing control of the spacecraft while docking the I.S.S. The issues with the thrusters failing led NASA to make the decision to send Starliner back to Earth without Butch and Sonny onboard. SpaceX launched a mission to retrieve the stranded astronauts earlier this year. Starliner appears to be on hold indefinitely after the bad experiences of the first mission. That could change if Boeing is able to fix the problem and if SpaceX was no longer dominating the manned space exploration for the U.S.

Secondly there is Blue Origin. Blue Origin – owned by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos – has its new rocket engine factory in Huntsville. Blue Origin builds rocket engines for ULA and for their own rockets. The rift between Musk and Trump could present Blue Origin with an opportunity to become a more major player in the space sector.

Third there is NASA itself. For 25 years NASA awed the world with the many accomplishments made by the Space Shuttle program – including building the I.S.S. NASA made the now dubious decision to move on from flying their own fleet of spacecraft and instead relying on commercial companies like SpaceX, ULA, Boeing, and Blue Origin for the bulk of its future spacefaring.

The major exception to this reliance on third party contractors is the Space Launch System (SLS). The SLS is the most powerful rocket ever built. It is basically a Saturn rocket with two Space Shuttle booster rockets attached. The idea – which seemed simple at the time – has been delayed due to technical issues and costs far more than anybody had originally projected. The system however does work and is slated – with the Orion spacecraft - to return man to the Moon before 2030. There was concern that the second Trump administration would cancel the very costly SLS as government searches for budget cuts. If the working relationship with SpaceX has soured the SLS gives NASA a viable option to send their own spacecraft to the I.S.S without being dependent on SpaceX or the Russians.

The engineering for the SLS is being performed by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville. Modifying an Orion module to go to the I.S.S. is not engineering that should be particularly difficult – costly perhaps – but very possible.

Additionally, this could be a problem that solves itself as the I.S.S. is nearing the end of its useful life. NASA and its international partners have done a good job of holding off obsolescence for the 24-year-old space station; but at some point, NASA is going to have to make a tough decision on the future of that aging facility.

https://www.nasa.gov/faqs-the-international-space-station-transition-plan/

The rift between Trump and Musk began with Congress not being receptive to cuts in spending proposed by Musk's controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The U.S. presently has a two trillion budget deficit. To balance the budget in five years would require over four hundred billion dollars a year in cuts per year. The budget that House Republicans passed does little to move in that direction. Instead, the bill makes Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent. Without doing this, everyone's taxes will automatically experience approximately a 21 percent increase in tax payments phased in starting as soon as July 1. Trump's budget also includes controversial new tax cuts on tips. On the plus side it does eliminate Biden era "Green New Deal" regulations such as the controversial tax credit on E.V.s.

Apparently, the world's richest man does not actually understand how a bill becomes a law. The House passed out version one of the "Big Beautiful Bill" with the tax cuts and more money to implement Trump's border enforcement and immigration policies; but only limited cuts to federal spending – essentially the popular political stuff. The bill is now in the Senate where Senators are working to make more cuts. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) told reporters on Wednesday that "There is a lot of lipstick on that pig," and that the Senators were looking at cuts. The Senate version of the bill remains to be seen and then they send it back to the House, where a Republican controlled conference committee will likely still make improvements to the final legislation. This bill makes the 2017 tax cuts permanent and implements new tax cuts. It also keeps the government funded until the end of the fiscal year – September 30. There will be more opportunities to make cuts in the next C.R. that will hopefully go into effect by October 1 and then before the end of the calendar year the Republican controlled Congress will either craft an actual budget – something that has not happened since the first half of the last Trump administration – or another C.R. to keep the government funded. The final version of this C.R. – much less the next two have even been written yet. In politics there is no sense in showing your final hand and getting criticized by the Democrats, the media, and the public before it becomes absolutely necessary.

Musk apparently does not understand this, so called Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" an "abomination." Trump then suggested that the elimination of the E.V. subsidy is why Musk opposed it. Musk quit his role with DOGE. The President said he was removed. Trump suggested that Musk makes billions of dollars off of government subsidies and contracts which could be coming to an end.

"In light of the President's statement about cancellation of my government contracts, @SpaceX will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately," Musk said on the social media platform X on Thursday. Musk purchased X (then named Twitter) in 2022. The previous ownership of X/Twitter banned President Trump from their site in early 2021 over claims that he was spreading misinformation about the 2020 elections and had committed an insurrection. Trump subsequently created his own social media platform – Truth Social

An angry Musk said that President Trump was in the Epstein files. While Jeffrey Epstein was a friend of Trump, claiming that Trump traveled to Epstein's private island to have sex with underage girls being kept in captivity there seems highly doubtful given that the Biden administration never claimed this and they and their political allies indicted the then former President over 200 times in lawfare that ultimately cost Democrats the Presidency, the House of Representatives, and the Senate in 2024.

NASA press secretary Bethany Stevens said in a post on X that the agency "will continue to execute upon the President's vision for the future of space. We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President's objectives in space are met."

Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, was a major contributor to Trump and Republicans in 2024. He has suggested that he will be much less involved in political giving moving forward.