Elon Musk took to X on Sunday to tell people that if they vote for Donald Trump, he’ll take them to Mars within several years—and if they vote for Kamala Harris, they can kiss a trip to outer space goodbye. (And humanity as well, but it’s the outer space stuff that’s important here.)
In a lengthy post on the social media site he bought in 2022, Musk wrote: “SpaceX plans to launch about five uncrewed Starships to Mars in two years. If those all land safely, then crewed missions are possible in four years. If we encounter challenges, then the crewed missions will be postponed another two years…. No matter what happens with landing success, SpaceX will increase the number of spaceships traveling to Mars exponentially with every transit opportunity. We want to enable anyone who wants to be a space traveler to go to Mars! That means you or your family or friends – anyone who dreams of great adventure.” Sounds pretty cool, huh? But if the mean-lady candidate wins, no space for you.
“While I have many concerns about a potential Kamala regime, my absolute showstopper is that the bureaucracy currently choking America to death is guaranteed to grow under a Democratic Party administration,” Musk told his followers. This chokehold, he claimed, would not only “destroy the Mars program“ but “doom humanity” too. (He did not mention that he has endorsed the ex-president and donated to a pro-Trump super PAC he helped create.) “It cannot happen,” Musk warned. “Your help would be much appreciated. This is a fork, maybe the fork, in the road of human destiny.”
As Quartz notes, this “isn’t the first time that Musk has forecast an apocalyptic scenario that will doom society.” He previously warned that the population would collapse as a result of low fertility rates (hence his one-man mission to populate the earth); that human civilization would be wiped out by an asteroid like the one that killed the dinosaurs; and that the sun would eventually incinerate the earth. But apparently a Donald Trump win can save us all.