Elon Musk in 2025: Will space entrepreneur's Trump card pay political dividends?

Elon Musk, the billionaire behind SpaceX, Tesla and social media platform X, is no stranger to the spotlight. In 2024, he dominated headlines with advancements in space exploration, controversial political engagements and sweeping changes to the business formerly known as Twitter.

As 2025 approaches, Mr Musk’s influence continues to be felt across industries, winning admiration and stirring debate in equal measure. SpaceX, his crown jewel, had a groundbreaking year in 2024, largely thanks to Starship, the company’s fully reusable launch vehicle, which is still in development.

His growing sway is also felt in politics as he has the ear of US president-elect Donald Trump, at least for now, as an administration for a second Trump term in the White House is assembled.

Dr Wendy N Whitman Cobb, professor of strategy and security studies at the School of Advanced Air and Space Studies in the US state of Alabama, described the progress as transformative.

“The biggest thing they’ve done this year with Starship is actually get it to a successful launch,” she told The National. “It’s the most powerful rocket ever built, and it underpins a lot of what SpaceX is trying to achieve – making space flight routine and lowering the cost of access to space.”

SpaceX leads the way with Starship's progress

Starship’s success is not only critical to SpaceX’s goals but also to Nasa’s Artemis programme. The rocket will be used in the Artemis 3 mission under a $2.89 billion contract, intended to land astronauts on the Moon this decade.

SpaceX’s dominance in the global launch market is another area where Mr Musk’s influence is undeniable. The company launched more mass into orbit in 2024 than any country, a feat that shows its technical and operational capability. This dominance, however, has raised concerns about stifling competition.

“They’ve essentially put Russia out of the commercial launch business and made it very hard for European launchers like Ariane to compete,” Dr Whitman Cobb said.

“My biggest concern is whether they’ve been so successful that it makes it harder for new players to emerge.”

Radical changes at X (formerly Twitter)

Mr Musk’s achievements in space exploration are often contrasted with his controversial ownership of X. The platform he purchased in 2022 has undergone radical changes since then.

Dr Anabel Quan-Haase, professor and associate dean for the faculty of information and media studies at Western University in Ontario, said there have been ripples from Mr Musk’s style.

“Musk’s management and policy changes at X have given other platforms the impetus to adopt similar approaches to deregulation,” said Dr Quan-Haase, who is also a sociologist that studies social networks and social change.

“Facebook had been under close scrutiny for years from regulatory bodies because of the cyberbullying, harassment and dissemination of misinformation occurring on the site.

“Mark Zuckerberg (co-founder of Facebook and its parent, Meta) had initiated a number of initiatives to counter these concerns, but following the changes at X, Facebook has abandoned these initiatives.”

She said that “Musk has set a precedent” for letting platforms exist in a deregulated ecosystem, where “basically anything goes”.

“This precedent is dangerous and sets the internet back decades to its early history where chat rooms had no norms and rules,” Dr Quan-Haase said.

“Rather than attracting a wide user base in terms of gender, ethnicity and opinion, platforms like X and Truth Social, operate as political echo chambers.”

The changes at X have also had financial consequences. Advertisers have cut spending, wary of associating with inflammatory content.

Meanwhile, some users have sought safer online environment.

“Much of the discourse we see today is characterised as shallow and one-sided, rather than nuanced and well-rounded,” Dr Quan-Haase said.

“Musk’s free-speech advocacy creates an environment where harassment, misogyny and personal attacks are considered acceptable, and rules of civility are reinterpreted as limiting individuals’ rights to freedom of speech.”

Musk's legacy under debate

Meanwhile, space enthusiasts are debating whether Mr Musk’s political activities and management of X are detracting from his legacy as a space pioneer or enhancing it by keeping space exploration in the spotlight.

“I think for a lot of us, space folks, we've sort of batted around the question that if, God forbid, Elon Musk all of a sudden was to go away tomorrow, would SpaceX still be the company that it is?” said Dr Whitman Cobb.

“And I think sometimes we think 'yes', because obviously his attention has been elsewhere, and SpaceX has still been able to succeed.

“But at the same time, SpaceX is so influenced by his goals, attitudes and his perspectives on how to accomplish these things, then I'm not entirely sure that SpaceX would be the same without him. A lot of the success is due to his approach to space flight and how he has run SpaceX.”

With 2025 approaching, Mr Musk is also set for a role at the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a commission that Mr Trump is planning to launch.

Mr Musk became a leading ally to Mr Trump during his campaign, reportedly spending more than $100 million to help the Republican win and repeatedly boosting Mr Trump's candidacy on X.

The department would “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure federal agencies”, Mr Trump had said in a statement.

The department “will provide advice and guidance from outside of government,” a move that could allow Mr Musk to avoid disclosing his financial holdings, with critics warning his growing political role could throw up a conflict of interests for the business magnate.

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