Elon Musk has accused former President Joe Biden of leaving two astronauts stuck aboard the International Space Station for “political reasons.”
“They were left up there for political reasons, which is not good,” Musk remarked while sitting beside President Trump during a joint interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity on Tuesday evening.
In September, Musk’s SpaceX launched a Crew Dragon capsule to retrieve the astronauts, and it successfully docked with the space station. However, NASA chose to delay their return.
Musk told Hannity that the return mission would now occur in “about four weeks,” explaining that the delay had been “postponed kind of to a ridiculous degree.”
“At the president’s request, or instruction, we are accelerating the return of the astronauts,” Musk added.
“We have brought astronauts back from the space station many times before, and always with success,” Musk said, assuring that his team would remain “extremely cautious.”
SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule, launched in September, successfully docked with the space station, aiming to rescue the astronauts. Musk emphasized that the craft’s return to Earth would take place in “about four weeks.”
“We have brought astronauts back from the space station many times before, and always with success,” Musk reiterated, adding that his team would be “extremely cautious.”
“They didn’t have the go-ahead with Biden,” Trump commented.
“He was going to leave them in space. I think he was going to leave them in space… He didn’t want the publicity.”
Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were stranded in June when an issue arose with Boeing’s Starliner capsule, which returned without them.
Their stay on the station, originally planned for just eight days, has now lasted 258 days.
In December, NASA stated that the astronauts would have to wait for another SpaceX rescue vehicle to arrive with replacement scientists “no earlier than late March,” followed by an unspecified handover period before they could depart.
Trump had posted on social media last month that Biden “abandoned” Wilmore and Williams, a claim that led to their denials.
“We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded,” Wilmore told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, acknowledging that he understood why others might think otherwise.
Williams commented, “It was a little bit longer stay than we had expected,” but noted, “we’ve made the most of it.”
The joint interview with Trump and Hannity, filmed at the White House last week, focused primarily on Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative, which aims to reduce federal spending.

{Matzav.com}