Why would Elon Musk pivot from Mars to the Moon all of a sudden? | “SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon.”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/has-elon-musk-given-up-on-mars/
Why would Elon Musk pivot from Mars to the Moon all of a sudden? | “SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon.”
https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/has-elon-musk-given-up-on-mars/
37 Comments
>As more than 120 million people tuned in to the Super Bowl for kickoff on Sunday evening, SpaceX founder Elon Musk turned instead to his social network. There, he tapped out an extended message in which he revealed that SpaceX is pivoting from the settlement of Mars to building a “self-growing” city on the Moon.
>“For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years,” Musk wrote, in part.
>This is simultaneously a jolting and practical decision coming from Musk.
>Why it’s a jolting decision
>A quarter of a century ago, Musk founded SpaceX with a single-minded goal: settling Mars. One of his longest-tenured employees, SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell, described her very first interview with Musk in 2002 to me as borderline messianic.
>“He was talking about Mars, his Mars Oasis project,” Shotwell said. “He wanted to do Mars Oasis, because he wanted people to see that life on Mars was doable, and we needed to go there.”
>She was not alone in this description of her first interaction with Musk. The vision for SpaceX has not wavered. Even in the company’s newest, massive Starship rocket factory at the Starbase facility in South Texas—also known as the Gateway to Mars—there are reminders of the red planet everywhere. For example, the carpet inside Musk’s executive conference room is rust red, the same color as the surface of Mars.
>In the last 25 years Musk has gone from an obscure, modestly wealthy person to the richest human being ever, from a political moderate to chief supporter of Donald Trump; from a respected entrepreneur to, well, to a lot of things to a lot of people: world’s greatest industrialist/super villain/savant/grifter-fraudster.
Because he probably wants to go to the Moon or Mars himself in his lifetime. With Mars seeming ever more unlikely – and the Moon realistically attainable – this might be why he’s shifting focus.
Because investors. IPO is coming up soon, and Mars is too far of a goal for Wall Street.
I bet it’s the delays to the contracts to deliver the lander for the moon mission and perhaps further prospects of contracts. Nasa can’t say they’re distracted or resources are being wasted.
1. It’s easier
2. It’s “new” which excites investors more
3. He has inside information about upcoming government grants
Mars was always hype and never realistic
I am very confused. There was going to be a trip to Mars in 2026, some humans in 2030, and now we are settling for the moon?
It is as if he just say things without proper planning but to bump up the SpaceX share price, but the majority of the things he say are baloney and do not happen.
I am not sure we can trust his moon colony and timeline either.
Because NASA will pay him to send rockets to The Moon.
I don’t understand the mystery. Name one deadline he’s met.
Do we even have everything we need on the Moon for self growing City? Wole starship methane thing was because its “easy” to manufacture on the Mars. Is it possible and feasible to produce methane on the Moon?
I thought it was “a distraction”?
1) Kill the moon missions by saying they’re too easy and to do Mars.
2) Once competitors are out of the picture, change back to the moon.
3) Make tons of money lying to manipulate the stock market because nothing matters anymore.
Edit: Found the SpaceX boot lickers 🥾😋
Because it’s all bullshit.
We are living in the Simpsons “monorail” episode. Musk will get billions in taxpayer funds to build shit that has no hope of going anywhere.
Rinse and repeat.
Over promise and under deliver: The Tech Bro Way!
Maybe because SpaceX is actually being paid to develop the moon lander?
for those not in the know, the moon is the next stop. Elon is changing his tune on MArs, because the contracts for lunar exploration are coming and he doesnt want to miss out on any free money
Remember when musk was going to build the Hyperloop?
Because it was always a grift. Just like data centers in orbit is now. It’s easy, people keep falling for it.
Gateway to ~~Mars~~ Data Centers in Space! (Also moon).
Occupy ~~Mars~~ Low Earth Orbit.
I posted this only 6! days ago:
“And thus a sad end to SpaceX’s primary vision is here. It may still take a while, but this will kill the long term vision of the company.
Mars just got a lot farther away.”
Didn’t think it would be THAT fast.
I also think SpaceX is suddenly realizing just how much farther along Blue Origin’s moon landing plans are than we all thought, and are starting to take it seriously.
I think the long cycle time is a good argument against using Mars as the first destination. There are many things that need to be developed that apply in a similar fashion to both the Moon and Mars, and having the ability to iterate more quickly than every 2 years does make sense.
I don’t think the Moon is a very good back-up location for humanity. It’s really more of a mining outpost than a fixer-upper with any potential. But it’s pretty good for practice. Hopefully they will keep the same cadence for Mars anyway, and simply add the Moon program. After all, having a large and healthy Moon program does make the Mars program very much cheaper to run.
People forget that the Cybertruck was delivered 3 years late and that the roadster was never delivered.
Boring company anyone?
If SpaceX goes public their investors are going to want real attainable goals
Uh, same reason he “pivoted” from fully autonomous self-driving cars being just a few years away? He’s what we call a shyster who promises the stars, then delivers a fraction of those promises years behind schedule. It’s an advanced rhetorical technique known as “lying.” You might have even encountered this rare phenomenon once or twice in your life.
The most hilarious thing about these threads is that Musk skeptics have been saying for years that Mars was unattainable and a stupid idea, and Musk fans have always adamantly pushed back against that; but every single one of them in order to defend Musk *now* has to be all like “well of course Mars was a silly idea, everbody knows the moon makes more sense…”
Starting with the moon first seems like a logical step to me. But I highly doubt that has anything to do with his decision.
I suspect people are starting to worry about Artemis III with Artemis II launching in the next few weeks. I’ve been seeing a LOT of content surrounding Starship and how it’s primarily designed for Mars travel, leading to it being overengineered for the moon. With Artemis III entirely hinging on SpaceX delivering Starship, he really needs to rally support right now.
I always thought that for us to get to mars, we need to setup on the moon first. Way easier to push off that rock than this one.
Because he lies all the fucking time. Where’s full self driving at?
Because he’s kind of an idiot and ketamine has never improved anyone’s thinking?
Government wants to reach the moon again; Elon wants more of that government’s money.
There’s that magic 10 year timeframe again.
If someone in tech says 5 years, it will take 10. If someone says 10 years then it will never happen.
Musk’s goal for Mars was 2028, that launch window is rapidly closing, and he’s nowhere near. So, rather than admit to his investors that he’s full of shit, he’s shifting focus to the moon. But again, based on current progress, he’s at least a decade away from achieving that, and who knows what might happen in the next 10 years.
Because he’s all mouth. It’s how showmen work to keep people investing.
Same as his data-centre-in-orbit bullshit.
It’ll be mining asteroids in 6 months.
Mars is hard. Really hard. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly hard it is. I mean, you may think it’s a hard road to the Moon, but that’s just peanuts to Mars.
Because the US government wants to establish a moon base before sending humans to Mars. The government contracts all fit his timeline too.
Mars is near impossible with current technology as the experts have been saying for years. His ego finally let him hear some non sycophantic information.
He needs to state new goals so people forget he never accomplished the old ones.