Elon Musk's "Hubris and Arrogance" Are Ruining Our Chances of Actually Getting to Mars, Says Leading Expert
Robert Zubrin, who has coauthored hundreds of papers and laid out several blueprints as to how to settle on Mars, told Agence France-Presse in an interview that Musk is "absolutely instrumental in opening up this opportunity to get humans to Mars, both through the development of Starship and also the inspiration that has caused."
But given the "hubris and arrogance" he has since bred — Zubrin went as far as to compare him to failed European dictator Napoleon Bonaparte — our future efforts to travel to the distant planet over 140 million miles away could be in peril.
For our effort to send humans to Mars "to succeed, it has to go beyond these — this initiative cannot be seen as a Musk hobbyhorse or a Trump hobbyhorse — it must be seen, at a minimum, as America's program, or preferably the Free World's program," Zubrin told AFP.
The publication of the interview comes in the wake of an incredibly messy divorce between Musk and president Donald Trump, though Zubrin made his comments before the relationship disintegrated. The two have been going at each other's throats and even threatening to cut off NASA's access to space.
Musk's dreams of making humanity interplanetary by establishing a city on Mars appear to have slipped significantly on his list of priorities. The mercurial CEO was heavily criticized for abandoning his businesses in favor of overseeing a disastrous gutting of the US federal government, and is now racing to make Tesla investors happy as sales continue to plummet worldwide.
SpaceX has also encountered major headwind in getting its Mars-bound Starship to not explode. The company's last three test flights ended in so-called "rapid unscheduled disassemblies," highlighting growing technical difficulties and the enormous degree of complexity involved in launching and landing the most powerful rocket in the world.
While Musk has previously vowed to land Starships on Mars before the end of next year — he admitted it was a "50-50 chance" late last month — his characteristically ambitious timelines are once again looking unrealistic at best.
"Progress is measured by the timeline to establishing a self-sustaining civilization on Mars," Musk said in a promotional video shared by SpaceX on May 29. "Each launch is about learning more and more about what's needed to make life multi-planetary and to improve Starship to the point where it can be taking, ultimately, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people to Mars."
But all the turbulence Musk has generated, in addition to the Trump administration's brutal budget cut proposal to NASA, likely will only hamper our efforts to visit Mars, Zubrin argued.
Complicating matters are fundamental disagreements about NASA's future direction. In a move largely seen as retribution, the Trump administration pulled its nomination for SpaceX space tourist and billionaire Jared Isaacman, who was hand-picked for the job by Musk.
"This combination of Trump and Musk is not going to persist forever," Zubrin told AFP, foreshadowing Thursday's drama. "And if this program is identified as their deal, it will be crushed as soon as opposing forces have sufficient power."
Most of all, Zubrin disagreed with Musk's stance that humanity will be saved by leaving the Earth behind and settling on Mars instead.
"We're not going to Mars out of despair," he told AFP. "We're going to Mars out of hope... to establish new branches of human civilization which will add their creative capacity to that of humanity as a whole."
"If we do the kind of program that I advocated... we will once again, as we did in Apollo, astonish the world with what free people can do," he added. "We'll make it clear that freedom, not authoritarianism, is the future of the human race."
More on Mars: Trump Just Kicked Elon Musk's Hand-Picked NASA Head to the Curb
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Politico
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Elon Musk is threatening to put third-party candidates on the ballot. Democrats are giddy.
'My first reaction was, it seems pretty confined in substance,' Mayo said. 'And because of that, I think it pulls some of the following that he has that has sort of found its way into the Republican Party base.' Musk did not respond to a request for comment sent via email. Voters regularly overstate how likely they are to vote or join a third party. But recent polling suggests Americans are at least theoretically open to it. While nearly half of voters say they would consider joining a third party, only 17 percent are interested in joining a Musk-led option, according to polling from Quinnipiac University from earlier this month. But that party could pull disproportionately from the GOP, per the survey, which found that nearly three times as many Republicans as Democrats would consider joining Musk's proposed third party. Barrett Marson, a Republican political strategist in Arizona, cautioned that a libertarian-minded candidate backed by Musk could attract support from either direction, putting Democrats in battleground districts at risk too. 'If anyone can be a spoiler or at least put up a candidate who has a chance to in either direction, it's Elon Musk, because he has the drive and financial wherewithal to match it,' Marson said. Still, Musk's ability to successfully field third-party bids will be highly dependent on the particular districts he targets and the candidates he puts on the ballot, said Charlie Gerow, a Pennsylvania-based GOP operative. 'Elon Musk's money is enough to sway a significant number of elections,' Gerow said. 'But you have to look at the individual candidates and the message they run on. There's a lot of factors that will play into whether or not he's successful. I think at this stage it's hard to predict the outcome when we don't really know what he's going to do.' Even if Musk fails to get candidates on the ballot, his bad blood with Trump will be sorely felt by Republicans, who benefited massively from his largesse in 2024. Ultimately, Democrats are still confident the effort would more than likely play out to their benefit should it come to fruition, said Georgia Democratic Party Chair Charlie Bailey, who is gearing up for one of the most competitive Senate races next year. 'I think if something has Elon Musk's branding on it, that you're not going to attract Democrats, and you're not going to attract many independents,' Bailey said. 'I think if it's got Elon Musk branding, you're likely to attract the vast majority of right-wing Republicans, so I don't think those voters are probably that gettable for us anyway.'
