Elon Musk Miffed That Joe Biden Hasn’t Personally Praised SpaceX’s Inspiration4 Mission

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk would very very like the president to pay a little bit extra consideration to him, it appears.

This weekend, SpaceX accomplished its Inspiration4 mission, the first all-civilian mission to orbit, which used one of many firm’s Crew Dragon crew capsules. It’s a giant achievement for the corporate to make certain, however Joe Biden has but to publicly acknowledge the launch. Why isn’t clear. Perhaps the administration simply doesn’t really feel each single factor the handful of billionaires dashing to beat house wants a remark. Or it might should do with Musk being a political legal responsibility. He’s infamously nasty on Twitter, whereas Tesla has reportedly lengthy employed anti-union techniques and is dealing with down a battle with federal auto safety regulators investigating its Autopilot characteristic. Musk additionally spent a lot of the coronavirus pandemic parroting anti-lockdown rhetoric and, in line with Texas Governor Greg Abbott, is totally on board with an excessive abortion ban within the state.

Regardless of the precise purpose for the perceived snub, Musk is miffed that like just about each different American, the president hasn’t personally praised him at present. Hence this snippy tweet on Sunday seemingly referencing Donald Trump’s “Sleepy Joe” nickname for the POTUS, which has predictably set off a round of media coverage:

Musk later replied “Seems that way” to a meme portraying the United Auto Workers, which Tesla has lengthy tried to suppress from organizing staff at its auto crops, as having a facehugger-like stranglehold on Biden’s face. Tesla was not too long ago not on the invite list at a White House occasion selling electrical autos, fairly presumably due to its anti-union file. This month, Musk has publicly complained {that a} Biden administration proposal to offer a $12,500 tax incentive to consumers of electrical autos will need to have been written by “Ford/UAW lobbyists” as a result of it features a $4,500 credit score for vehicles which might be union-made.

What could possibly be stated about that is that it’s fairly commonplace Musk stuff, referring to each the tweeting what may need been left higher unsaid, the paper-thin ego drawing bother for considered one of his corporations, and the pages of ensuing protection on Google News (together with this text). He’s traditionally been fairly contemptuous of the federal government when it isn’t doing precisely what he needs it to do. That features a long-running spat with the Securities and Exchange Commission, a showdown with well being authorities in California over whether or not Tesla staff have been “essential” in the course of the pandemic, and the issues over Autopilot raised by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). While the NTSB doesn’t have the form of regulatory authority essential to intrude with Tesla’s plans to roll out upgraded “Full Self-Driving Capability,” the company has already warned that Tesla must tackle “basic safety issues” earlier than doing so. Its chief, Jennifer Homendy, has referred to as Tesla’s advertising and marketing of the characteristic “misleading and irresponsible.”

As CNN noted, the SpaceX flight was acknowledged repeatedly by Bill Nelson, who because the Biden-appointed administrator of NASA overseeing the Commercial Crew Program is in fact the federal official whose job description most carefully entails weighing in on profitable personal missions to orbit.

On Saturday, Nelson tweeted, “Congratulations #Inspiration4! With today’s splashdown, you’ve helped demonstrate that low-Earth orbit is open for business.” Nelson had additionally beforehand commented on the day of the Inspiration4 launch, tweeting “Low-Earth orbit is now more accessible for more people to experience the wonders of space. We look forward to the future—one where NASA is one of many customers in the commercial space market. Onward & upward.”