Elon Musk has claimed that two NASA astronauts stranded on the International Space Station (ISS) were left there “for political reasons.” Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore were supposed to return home after an eight-day mission in June 2024, but technical failures with their Boeing capsule forced them to remain aboard the ISS for over eight months.
Musk made the statement in a Fox News interview alongside Donald Trump, suggesting that the Biden administration delayed their return. Trump added that “Biden was going to leave them in space,” but neither elaborated on how or why this would have benefited the administration politically.
NASA has since accelerated its timeline for the astronauts’ return, with SpaceX preparing to bring them back to Earth in the coming weeks. Musk assured that while SpaceX has successfully completed similar missions before, his team remains “extremely cautious.” The return trip is expected to take approximately four weeks.
The claim has sparked controversy, with critics calling it an attempt to politicize space exploration. The White House has not yet responded to Musk’s comments, and NASA has maintained that the extended mission was due to “technical readiness concerns.”
