SpaceX CEO Elon Musk believes a Trump presidency would accelerate the company’s ambitious Starship program, citing concerns over regulatory hurdles during a speech at the Future Investment Initiative Conference in Saudi Arabia.
The billionaire entrepreneur outlined his timeline for Mars missions, reaffirming plans for uncrewed Starship launches to Mars within approximately two years, coinciding with the next planetary alignment.
Following five successful test launches of the spacecraft designed to make humanity multiplanetary, Musk detailed a stepped approach: unmanned Mars missions by 2026, followed by potential human missions by 2028.
Speaking at a recent Town Hall event, Musk emphasized the importance of timing: “In roughly two years, there will be another planetary alignment, and that’s when we intend to send the first Starship rockets to Mars.”
While acknowledging the program’s positive trajectory and successful test flights, Musk highlighted regulatory challenges as a significant obstacle.
The SpaceX CEO pointed to friction with the Biden administration, which has manifested in multiple ways.
These tensions included Biden’s initial reluctance to recognize Tesla’s leadership in the electric vehicle sector and regulatory bottlenecks delaying SpaceX launches.
“I feel more optimistic about it under with a Trump White House than a non-Trump white house because the biggest impediment in progress that we’re experiencing is overregulation,”
Musk stated at the conference.
“It takes longer to get the permit to launch than to build a giant rocket. A lot of countries are getting slow strangulation from overregulation. Unless something is done to push back on that, it’ll eventually become illegal to do almost any large project and we won’t be able to get to Mars.”
SpaceX recently addressed these regulatory concerns in a blog post titled “Starships are meant to fly,” highlighting that completing government paperwork often takes longer than the rocket licensing process itself.
Despite these challenges, SpaceX continues to advance its Mars mission objectives, with Musk maintaining that the project remains on track while acknowledging the need for certain conditions to align to maintain the proposed timeline.