SpaceX officials have told people outside the company in recent weeks that NASA’s resources will be reallocated toward Mars efforts.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell has told industry and government peers that her work is increasingly focused on getting to Mars. Inside SpaceX, employees have been told to prioritize Mars-related work on its deep-space rocket over NASA’s moon program when those efforts conflict.
A longtime SpaceX executive recently moved to NASA to shadow the agency’s acting administrator ahead of Isaacman’s confirmation. He’s in position to monitor the highest levels of decision-making, and is known to some as “Elon’s conduit,” people familiar with the arrangement said.
And NASA’s program known as Artemis, its long-range plan to explore the moon and eventually Mars, is being rethought to make Mars a priority. One idea: Musk and government officials have discussed a scenario in which SpaceX would give up its moon-focused Artemis contracts worth more than $4 billion to free up funds for Mars-related projects, a person briefed on the discussions said.
“We are going to be able to take astronauts to Mars,” Musk said in a Fox News interview in mid-March. “And ultimately build a self-sustaining civilization on Mars. That is the long-term goal of the company: make life multi-planetary.” On Thursday, he posted about the pressure to move quickly on the Mars endeavor, writing “Will we make Mars self-sustaining before civilization loses the ability to do so? That is the critical question.”
Trump in an interview in October called on the entrepreneur to launch a Mars mission during his next term. And in his inauguration speech—in a line the president himself added—Trump said he would launch Americans to “plant the Stars and Stripes on the planet Mars.”
The White House said the president advanced American leadership in space in his first term and will do so in his second term. “As for concerns regarding conflicts of interest between Elon Musk and DOGE, President Trump has stated he will not allow conflicts, and Elon himself has committed to recusing himself from potential conflicts,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.
Musk and his representatives didn’t respond to requests for comment.
A NASA spokeswoman said it looks forward to its incoming administrator “setting an agenda that aligns with the bold vision President Trump outlined in his inaugural address.” She added: “In that spirit, we remain committed to advancing an ambitious strategy to return Americans to the lunar surface, reach Mars, and push the boundaries of exploration even further.”
This article is based on interviews with nearly three dozen people close to Musk and the Trump administration, NASA, lawmakers and SpaceX.
For decades, colonizing Mars has been the stuff of science fiction, and the obsession of a band of devotees scattered across the country. Musk has emerged as a leader in the movement for humans traveling deeper into space. At his companies, employees have spent years conducting research and working on Mars-related initiatives. Past U.S. presidents have called for human exploration of Mars, but launching crewed missions has been more of a stretch goal, given the immense technical hurdles and enormous risks to astronauts. It can take roughly a week to get to the moon and back, versus an estimated two to three years for a round trip between Earth and Mars.
To accomplish a plan to move up a Mars mission would likely mean a massive reordering of NASA’s programs—many of which take place over years—and staff. The nearly 70-year-old agency has about 18,000 employees and an annual budget of around $25 billion. Along with space exploration, staffers study climate change, research pilotless aircraft, carry out scientific experiments in the atmosphere and help operate the International Space Station, among other activities.
NASA staff on Jan. 31 received an email, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, from the agency’s acting administrator to welcome a new senior adviser: longtime SpaceX executive Michael Altenhofen. In his role at SpaceX, he became close to Isaacman and talks to him frequently. He took up his position right away, ahead of the confirmation hearing for Isaacman.
“I recognize we’re dealing with a lot of change that may be uncomfortable,” wrote Janet Petro, the acting administrator, referring to multiple changes at the agency. She noted an employee assistance program for those who need it.
Days later, NASA’s top brass gathered on the ninth floor of the agency’s Washington headquarters. Present were DOGE staffers, there to analyze the agency’s work. It started off on an awkward note: As people around the conference room shared their names and titles, one person whom others knew to be a DOGE staffer described themselves as a staffer at the Treasury Department—instead of as part of DOGE.
Even before the meeting, some NASA officials had been concerned about how transparent DOGE staffers would be about what they were doing at the agency.
Many NASA employees are rattled by changes leaders have made since the inauguration and are worried that a potentially large number of layoffs will upend the agency’s work.
NASA is committed to optimizing its workforce and resources in alignment with DOGE initiatives, the NASA spokeswoman said, adding that it ensures taxpayer dollars are directed toward the highest-impact projects while maintaining NASA’s essential functions.
NASA’s long-range plan to explore the moon and eventually Mars is under the microscope. NASA has been working on the Artemis program and its predecessors for years. The cost from the government’s fiscal years 2012 through 2025 is estimated at $93 billion, according to the agency’s inspector general.
In January, Musk called the moon program a distraction in a post on X. Days earlier he had criticized Artemis, saying “Something entirely new is needed.”
SpaceX, Boeing and others have billions in contracts to build rockets, ships and lunar landing vehicles, among other technologies, for the program.
Musk has discussed with officials the idea that SpaceX’s moon-focused contracts, valued at more than $4 billion, could be dropped in favor of Mars plans.
SpaceX’s current Artemis contracts call for it to conduct an uncrewed test landing on the moon with a version of its Starship vehicle, ahead of two missions where the spacecraft would transfer astronauts from an orbit around the moon to the lunar surface.
Current and former NASA officials have said they are worried that a major overhaul of Artemis would end up stalling U.S. progress after years of effort on hardware and infrastructure for the program. Getting rid of the SLS rocket carries its own risks, those officials say, because new private-sector vehicles, including SpaceX’s Starship, aren’t operational or are still ramping up.
Starship needs to reach important milestones—including work related to fuel transfers and operations with Orion, a Lockheed Martin-built craft that would ferry astronauts to the moon—before it could transport crew. SpaceX has conducted eight test launches of Starship, but the last two ended in explosions, highlighting the technical challenges the company faces with the vehicle.
NASA has flown one mission with SLS, an uncrewed test flight in 2022 that launched an Orion spacecraft around the moon and returned it to Earth. It has additional flights scheduled in the years ahead.
Officials from Trump’s Office of Management and Budget have told people about discussions under way to move U.S. government dollars toward Mars initiatives and away from programs focused on the moon and science missions. Killing or dramatically remaking the program would unravel years of development work, but some proponents say much of the hardware for Artemis, from the SLS rocket to ground infrastructure, is too expensive, slow to produce and behind schedule.
Any changes to the Artemis program could also affect Blue Origin, the space company founded by Jeff Bezos, which has a contract under Artemis to develop a lander for a future moon mission.
Artemis has powerful supporters in Congress. A bipartisan group of senators recently introduced legislation requiring the space agency and its leaders to continue supporting the existing plans and hardware for Artemis, including the SLS rocket.
An overarching goal is to return NASA astronauts to the moon before Chinese astronauts, called taikonauts, arrive there, and some see Boeing’s SLS as the best option to do that.
“Starship? I want success out of it. But for us to beat the Chinese…it’s going to have to be SLS that does it,” Rep. Brian Babin (R., Texas) said in February.
Other lawmakers hold views that clash with Musk on NASA priorities outside of Artemis. The International Space Station, the orbiting research lab that NASA helps operate, generates work at NASA’s facility in Houston and is important to Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas). NASA plans to decommission the station around 2030, although it could be extended, and wants private companies to develop stations to replace it.
But Musk in February said the ISS had served its purpose and should be brought down sooner than NASA has been planning to better focus on Mars.
SpaceX aims to test Starship aggressively with multiple test flights. Those must be approved by the FAA, the federal air-safety regulator.
Shotwell, SpaceX’s president, late last year said she wouldn’t be surprised if the company flies Starship as many as 400 times over the next four years, a sharp increase from its launch rate so far. Shotwell said she has called for simplified launch rules from regulators.
Following a test flight of Starship earlier this year, Musk suggested to a group of people gathered at the company’s Starbase complex in Texas that he saw space-related regulation as antithetical to achieving what SpaceX wants.
SpaceX said the FAA has at times slowed progress on its Starship rocket, and Musk last year accused the agency of overreach after it said SpaceX violated rocket-launch regulations.
Staffers from Musk’s DOGE group have been active at the FAA, focusing in part on air-traffic-control technology. Musk said in early February that DOGE could make “rapid safety upgrades” to air-traffic-control systems.
Trump has also sought input on FAA changes with some business leaders, including Musk. The president announced he was nominating longtime airline executive Bryan Bedford to lead the agency.
Isaacman, Trump’s nominee for NASA chief, has told people that he and Musk share a vision for making it possible for humans to live on other planets. When asked by an X user if he thought humans could fly to Mars as soon as 2028, Isaacman said it is worth investing in big-picture goals. The billionaire founded payments-technology firm Shift4 Payments and has been interested in space since childhood.
A spokeswoman for Isaacman didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Part of his challenge, should he be confirmed to run NASA, will be figuring out how to chase after difficult, frontier projects, such as sending people to Mars, amid budget pressure and competing priorities that may upset members of Congress. Sen. Cruz, who as a Texan has a strong interest in NASA jobs and operations there, will oversee Isaacman’s confirmation hearing as Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
Isaacman has spoken about the promise of private companies doing more in space, touching on efforts at Blue Origin and Rocket Lab USA, a California-based rocket launcher and satellite systems company.
Musk and his associates have discussed other potential NASA administrator candidates in case Isaacman isn’t confirmed, according to a person briefed on the deliberations.
Part of Isaacman’s preparation ahead of the confirmation hearing, which hasn’t been scheduled yet, includes questions about Musk’s role in setting government policy and Isaacman’s ties to Musk and SpaceX.
In a recent filing, Isaacman reported more than $5 million in capital gains related to SpaceX shares, indicating he sold company stock. He valued agreements with Musk’s company, including a space flight deal, at more than $50 million, and said one of his business ventures would terminate them if he is confirmed to run NASA, filings show. His payments company also does business with SpaceX’s Starlink division.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the mission of taking humanity to other planets. The company infused its culture with that long-term goal and completed a successful launch of its first rocket in 2008. It eventually developed the Falcon 9 rocket, which could be partially reused, lowering the cost of launches and taking market share from incumbent rocket operators.
Musk’s other businesses have contributed to the Mars goal. Musk has described Starlink, a SpaceX division that uses thousands of satellites to provide high-speed internet connections, as a cash machine for a future Mars mission. After Tesla, his electric-car company, gave Musk a stock award in 2018 valued at up to $55.8 billion, he later said it would be used for his space project. “It’s a way to get humanity to Mars,” he said in court in 2022.
Engineers at SpaceX have, at times, worked on unresolved questions about how humans might live off the land on Mars, such as by turning materials on the planet into usable resources. And senior technical leaders include an employee whose job it is to focus on landing a future Starship spacecraft on the Martian surface.
Write to Emily Glazer at Emily.Glazer@wsj.com and Micah Maidenberg at micah.maidenberg@wsj.com
