In his latest crashout, or confidence in newly bought power, Elon Musk has taken to Twitter to insult professional astronaut Andreas Mogensen, who commanded the International Space Station. But what was Musk insulting Mogensen about? Being corrected for a blatant lie about two NASA astronauts!

The full spat by Musk was as follows:

Mogensen: "What a lie" – "And from someone who complains about lack of honesty from the mainstream media"
Musk: "You are fully r*******." – "SpaceX could have brought them back several months ago." – "I OFFERED THIS DIRECTLY to the Biden administration and they refused." – "Return WAS pushed back for political reasons." – "Idiot."
Mogensen: "Elon, I have long admired you and what you have accomplished, especially at SpaceX and Tesla." – "You know as well as I do, that Butch and Suni are returning with Crew-9, as has been the plan since last September. Even now, you are not sending up a rescue ship to bring them home. They are returning on the Dragon capsule that has been on the ISS since last September."
Musk: "And this so-called "Commander" doesn't know his a** from a hole in the ground." – "Dude has no clue what's really going on." – "He's a passenger."

To begin with, Butch and Suni have always had a safe ride back to Earth ready in the event of an emergency. Starliner, despite being deemed unfit to return crew, was still available for emergency return until it departed, after which Crew-8 had preparations made for six astronauts. And since September, Crew-9 has been ready to bring Butch and Suni home after launching with just two crew. However Musk isn't well known for considering safety after dropping rocket debris on two different countries recently.

Additionally, if it's true that SpaceX did offer to send up a spacecraft to retrieve Butch and Suni, it would cost a small fortune. This would have cost at least 250 million United States Dollars, which NASA does not have the budget for, at minimum. Costs of launching in such a short timeframe are likely to have ballooned costs too, taking more money that NASA doesn't have!

Following his attack on Mogensen after being rightly called out, Musk began to campaign for ending the International Space Program years early. In his tweets, Musk "recommends" bringing the station down in two years, around 2027, which would be three years earlier than what was agreed upon by NASA and its international partners, including Europe, Russia, and Japan. But what grounds does he "recommend" bring the ISS to an end? "It has served its purpose" and "There is little utility", completely ignoring all of the ongoing science being performed for the benefit of Earth and the gap in a destination for U.S. astronauts! This would also conveniently line up with when SpaceX is no longer contracted to fly Crew Dragon as the U.S.' sole operational crew vehicle to the station.

So what does Musk stand to gain out of all this? A further monopoly over the U.S. space program. America is already nearly completely reliant on SpaceX for launching anything into orbit, and is totally reliant on the company for launching astronauts. Musk's company also controls the majority of satellites in low Earth orbit, disguising a few hundred spy satellites based on its commercial satellites which are also supporting those spy spacecraft.

For the second time in six months, Musk has utilized SpaceX's fantastic public image for his personal political and capital gains. Except this time it is not for minor political gain, instead as an overt display of control he has over the Trump administration and the Republican party for the low cost of 290 million United States Dollars.

Everything Musk is doing is serving his own interests. He is a beneficiary of South African apartheid, an illegal immigrant oligarch, and a neo-fascist.

Part of this article's header has been blurred to comply with European laws regarding hate speech and Nazi iconography.