Trump Says Musk ‘Will Soon Be on His Way’ to ‘Go Get’ Stranded Astronauts on Space Station: ‘Good Luck Elon!’

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk would “soon be on his way” to “go get” the two astronauts who have been stranded on the International Space Station for more than six months.

“I have just asked Elon Musk and @SpaceX to ‘go get’ the 2 brave astronauts who have been virtually abandoned in space by the Biden Administration,” announced Trump in a Truth Social post. “They have been waiting for many months on @Space Station. Elon will soon be on his way. Hopefully, all will be safe. Good luck Elon!!!”

In his own social media post earlier on Tuesday, Musk wrote, “The @POTUS has asked @SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the @Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so. Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long.”

It is not clear whether Trump has asked Musk to personally lead the rescue mission and retrieve the astronauts from the ISS himself.

Sixty-two-year-old Barry Wilmore and 59-year-old Sunita Williams have been stranded on the International Space Station since June 2024. While they had planned to spend just eight days in space, an issue with their Boeing Starliner capsule forced the two astronauts to remain on the space station indefinitely.

NASA announced in August that SpaceX would retrieve the stranded astronauts and bring them back to Earth on a Crew Dragon spacecraft, with the retrieval scheduled for no earlier than March.

Trump previously spoke about Musk’s planned rescue of the astronauts in September.

“He’s great. He gave me the greatest endorsement. He figures everything,” said Trump. “I think he’s got to get a rocket up to get those two people out of there.”

He continued, “I said, Elon, let’s get going. No, they’re relying on Elon to get the two people — who would like to be up there right now saying ‘we’re coming back home maybe in February?’ So that was not so good. But Elon will solve the problem. He’s great, great guy.”