September 21, 2021: -After SpaceX completed a historic, private spaceflight on Saturday, CEO Elon Musk took a pot shot at President Joe Biden, who had yet to remark on the company’s and the civilian flight crew’s accomplishments.
One of Musk’s 60 million followers on the social networking platform Twitter asked him, “The President of the United States has refused even to acknowledge the four newest American astronauts who helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for St. Jude. What’s your theory on why that is?”
Musk replied, “He’s still sleeping.” As CNBC previously reported, SpaceX safely returned its Crew Dragon spacecraft from orbit yesterday. The capsule carried the four members of the Inspiration4 mission back to Earth after three days in space.
One primary goal of the Inspiration4 mission was to raise $200 million for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and it had raised $160.2 million by Saturday. Celebrating after Inspiration4 splashed down, Musk pledged to contribute $50 million personally, which pushes the campaign’s total raised to $210 million.
Top NASA officials have congratulated Musk and SpaceX on the Inspiration4 mission. SpaceX competitors acknowledged it, too, with accolades from Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Blue Origin, and Musk’s peer and rival Jeff Bezos shared on social media.
This marked the first private SpaceX spaceflight with a non-professional crew. The mission involved the first Black woman serving as a spacecraft pilot, the youngest American to become an astronaut to date and the first to fly in space with a prosthesis.
Although Musk recently stated that he “would prefer to stay out of politics,” his quip on Sunday indicated a willingness to needle the Democratic president and repeat a right-wing taunt about Biden.
During his 2020 campaign, former President Donald Trump frequently insulted then-candidate Biden by calling him “Sleepy Joe.”
More recently, Trump sent Biden sarcastic well-wishes ahead of a Russian President Vladimir Putin summit in June. He said in an e-mailed statement at the time, “Good luck to Biden in dealing with President Putin— don’t fall asleep during the meeting, and please give him my warmest regards!”
SpaceX generally enjoys a good relationship with the federal government. For example, it won a $2.89 billion contract to build NASA’s next crewed lunar lander, beating out Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Leidos subsidiary Dynetics. SpaceX has flown ten astronauts to the ISS for NASA to date.
However, SpaceX is under investigation by the Department of Justice after accusations that it discriminated against job applicants based on citizenship status. This probe started during the Trump administration.
