Without Musk’s SpaceX, the US would be second place to China. If Trump deports Elon Musk, he’ll set US space travel back decades, writes Dr Rainer Zitelmann

Donald Trump has launched a fresh attack on Elon Musk, declaring that Doge, Musk’s cost-cutting body, is “the monster” that “that might have to go back and eat Elon”. On Truth Social on Monday, he continued: “Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. [sic]”

Trump acts like an autocratic dictator, responding to critics with threats of punishment. Musk was quite right to criticize Trump’s plans to continue the colossal debt orgy – as were some other Republican politicians, such as Rand Paul.

Trump may not know – or simply not care – that carrying out his threats, not least deporting Elon Musk, would set US space exploration back by two decades. November 14, 2011 marked a low point in US-manned space exploration when the American astronaut Daniel Burbank had to be transported to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket. The United States was no longer able to send its own astronauts into orbit having........

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