Elon Musk makes controversial 'political' claim about astronauts on Space Station

Elon Musk has once again accused the Joe Biden administration of leaving two astronauts stranded in space for “political reasons”.

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams travelled to the International Space Station (ISS) on 5 June last year on board Boeing’s Starliner, in a mission that was supposed to last just eight days.

Issues with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft emerged when docking at the ISS, and so it returned to Earth without the pair inside in September due to safety concerns.

The two astronauts voted in the US election and celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas in space.

During an interview alongside President Trump for Fox News, Musk claimed the two astronauts were, “left up there for political reasons, which is not good.”

Donald Trump and Elon Musk repeated their inaccurate claims about the astronautsFox News

The Tesla founder said the plan is to bring the astronauts back to Earth in “about four weeks” after plans were “postponed kind of to a ridiculous degree.”

He said: “At the president’s request, or instruction, we are accelerating the return of the astronauts.

“We have brought astronauts back from the space station many times before, and with success.”

Trump also weighed in and said: “They didn’t have the go-ahead with Biden. He was going to leave them in space. I think he was going to leave them in space… he didn’t want the publicity.”

Neither Trump nor Musk offered any evidence about this claim about not having the "go-ahead" with Biden.

The astronaut's return journey has been pushed back a number of times; they had been scheduled to make the journey home in February but last month this was delayed once again. This is due to the SpaceX rocket that will take them back down to Earth not being ready. A new timeline was given by NASA in December for "no earlier than late March". This is in line with the timeline Musk shared in the Fox interview.

Strangely, Trump announced at the end of January that he instructed Musk’s SpaceX company to return the two astronauts, claiming they had been “virtually abandoned” on the ISS.

Musk, who is the chief executive of SpaceX, posted on X on 28 January that the president asked him to bring the astronauts back “as soon as possible”.

The world’s richest man posted: “The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”

Musk’s comment stoked confusion in the space industry because NASA had already set in motion plans to return the astronauts with the help of SpaceX. In August, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced the plans for a February return date for the astronauts.

The astronauts themselves have also refuted claims that they were abandoned. “We don’t feel abandoned, we don’t feel stuck, we don’t feel stranded,” Wilmore told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who asked about Trump’s post on 28 January, adding, “I understand why others may think that.”

You should also read:

The latest on the astronauts stuck in space who say they 'don't feel like castaways'

NASA makes difficult decision in rescue mission for stranded astronauts

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