Elon Musk mocks President Biden after SpaceX completes its first civilian mission

After SpaceX completed its historic private spaceflight on Saturday, CEO Elon Musk posed for a photo with President Joe Biden, who has yet to mention the company’s accomplishments and its dedicated cockpit crew.

“The US President honors four American astronauts who have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for St. Jude,” said one of Musk’s 60 million followers on Twitter, a social networking platform. So I refused. What is your theory of the cause? When? “

Musk replied, “He’s still asleep.”

As CNBC previously reported, SpaceX safely returned the Crew Dragon spacecraft from orbit yesterday. After spending three days in space, the capsule brought four members of the Inspiration 4 mission back to Earth.

One of the main goals of the Inspiration4 mission was to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. She made $160.2 million on Saturday. Following the nomination of Inspiration4, Musk personally pledged $50 million, bringing the campaign’s total to $210 million.

The White House and SpaceX did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Top executives from NASA, SpaceX Mask and SpaceX congratulated the Inspiration 4 mission. SpaceX competitors acknowledged that Jeff Bezos shared on social media praise from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Blue Origin and other Musk competitors.

This was SpaceX’s first private spaceflight by a non-professional crew. In addition, the mission included the first black woman to pilot a spacecraft, the youngest American ever to become an astronaut, and the first woman to fly in space with a prosthetic limb. rice field.

Musk recently said he wants to “stay out of politics,” but his Sunday banter showed a willingness to hack the Democratic president and repeat right-wing taunts on Biden.

During the 2020 campaign, former President Donald Trump often insulted then-candidate Biden by calling him “Sleepy Joe.”

Trump recently sent sarcasm wishes to Biden ahead of his June summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Good luck to Biden in dealing with President Putin. Don’t sleep during the meeting,” he said in an email statement at the time. “I offer him my sincerest respect.”

SpaceX generally has a good relationship with the federal government. For example, it won a $2.89 billion contract to build a lunar lander for the next NASA crew member, beating Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Lydus affiliate Dainetics. SpaceX has sent 10 astronauts to the International Space Station so far.

However, SpaceX is under investigation by the Department of Justice after being accused of discriminating against job seekers on the basis of nationality. This investigation began during the Trump administration.

In addition to his responsibilities at SpaceX, Musk is also CEO of electric car maker Tesla. (Tesla is also a supplier to SpaceX.)

In the post, he recently complained about the Biden administration’s proposal to give an additional $4,500 stimulus to some buyers of new small electric passenger cars. One of the provisions of the proposal is that electric cars should be produced locally by the union.

The company operates a battery plant in Nevada, an automobile assembly plant in California, and is building another plant outside Austin, Texas, but Tesla is the only major non-integrated plant here. American auto maker.

“It’s not clear how this will help American taxpayers,” a Ford/UAW lobbyist wrote while manufacturing an electric car in Mexico. “It’s not clear how this will help American taxpayers,” Musk said on Twitter on September 12.

In the annual 2021 US Auto Index published by Cars.com, Tesla’s popular Model 3 electric sedan overtook the Model Y Cross to take third place.