Trump-Backed Funding Shift Puts NASA Moon Program Ahead of Musk’s Mars Plans

Former President Donald Trump has thrown his weight—and $10 billion in federal funding—behind NASA’s Artemis program, a move that slows Elon Musk’s long-standing ambition to focus U.S. resources on a human mission to Mars.

For more than a decade, Musk’s private company SpaceX has worked toward launching astronauts to the Red Planet and, eventually, establishing a settlement there. NASA has been exploring similar long-range goals, but its nearer-term priority has shifted back to the Moon.

The new Senate spending package—nicknamed the “Big Beautiful Bill”—directs $10 billion toward Artemis. That initiative will use NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) to return astronauts to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years and lay groundwork for a permanent American presence by the late 2020s.

SpaceX and Artemis represent sharply different engineering philosophies:

SpaceX: Emphasizes reusable rockets to lower launch costs.
SLS/Artemis: Relies on an expendable, single-use booster—an approach Musk calls costly and outdated.
Musk has described SLS as an “extremely inefficient, jobs-maximizing program” and argued that focusing on the Moon is “a distraction” from the ultimate aim of reaching Mars.

A Policy Reversal

The funding boost comes after earlier White House budgets proposed trimming SLS costs. Observers note the change of course may reflect broader political calculations—and perhaps Trump’s deteriorating relationship with Musk, who vocally supported the former president’s initial pro-Mars rhetoric.