Billionaire and tech titan Elon Musk shared his congratulations to SpaceX and NASA following the rescue of two astronauts stranded at the International Space Station for roughly the past nine months.
“Thanks to the excellent work of the SpaceX team working with NASA, the astronauts are now safely home. And so congratulations to the SpaceX NASA teams on excellent work,” Musk said during an exclusive interview on “Hannity” Tuesday.
The SpaceX founder and face of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) also offered a “huge note of appreciation” to President Donald Trump “for prioritizing and expediting the return.”
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams had been on the International Space Station since June 2024. Their mission was only scheduled to last one week after the launch of Boeing’s first astronaut flight. However, after the spacecraft encountered technical issues, and NASA determined it unsafe for it to arrive back to Earth with the astronauts on board, Wilmore and Williams remained stuck at the International Space Station for months.
Wilmore, Williams, Crew-9 Commander Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov made their return to Earth on Tuesday, with a splashdown off the coast of Florida just before 6 p.m. ET.
Wilmore and Williams’ return became a political issue for the Trump administration, with Musk previously telling Fox News host Sean Hannity on Feb. 18 that Biden left the astronauts in space for “political reasons.”
Shortly after taking office, Trump tasked Musk with bringing home the two astronauts, who he said had been “abandoned” by the Biden administration.
STRANDED ASTRONAUT SAYS HE BELIEVES MUSK’S CLAIMS THAT BIDEN REFUSED TO CONDUCT RESCUE MISSION
Trump also blasted former President Joe Biden for not acting sooner.
“I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to ‘go get’ the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration. They have been waiting for many months on @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!” posted Trump at the time.
In a post-landing news conference with SpaceX and NASA officials on Tuesday, Deputy Associate Administrator, NASA Space Operations Mission Directorate Joel Montalbano was asked about Trump and Musk’s claims that the Biden administration didn’t want to bring the Starliner crew back for political reasons.
“Yeah, so I wasn’t involved in any conversations with the previous administration,” Montalbano said. “It was clear we had a request from the current administration, and the results you saw are what we saw today with the landing of Crew-9.”
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Hannity pressed Musk on the politics behind the astronauts’ delayed return, and Musk set the record straight on his communications with the previous Biden administration.
“We definitely offered to return the astronauts earlier. There’s no question about that,” Musk said.
“The astronauts were only supposed to be there for eight days, and they’ve been there for almost ten months. So, obviously, that doesn’t make any sense. SpaceX could have brought the astronauts back after a few months at most, and we made that offer to the Biden administration. It was rejected for political reasons, and that’s just a fact.”
Fox News’ Jonathan Serrie, Landon Mion, Diana Stancy, Christina Shaw and Reuters contributed to this report.