Elon Musk just declared war on NASA’s acting administrator, apparently

The clock just ticked past noon here in Houston, so it’s acceptable to have a drink, right? Because after another turbulent morning of closely following the rough-and-tumble contest to become the next NASA administrator, I sure could use one. What has happened now? Why, it was only SpaceX founder Elon Musk, who is NASA’s most important contractor, referring to the interim head of the space agency, Sean Duffy, as “Sean Dummy” and suggesting Duffy was trying to kill NASA. Musk later added, “The person responsible for America’s space program can’t have a 2 digit IQ.” This is all pretty bonkers, so I want to try to contextualize what I believe is going on behind the scenes. This should help us make sense of what is happening in public. It all boils down to this The most important through line for all of this is as follows: the contest to become the next NASA administrator. This has, as the British like to say, hotted up of late. And people are starting to take sides. In one corner stands the private astronaut and billionaire, Jared Isaacman. He was nominated by Donald Trump to become NASA administrator last year, and after a lengthy process, he was on the cusp of confirmation when the president pulled his nomination for political reasons in late May. In the other corner is Sean Duffy, a former congressman with minimal space experience, whom Trump appointed as interim administrator after yanking Isaacman. Duffy was already secretary of transportation. Since then, a lot has happened, but it boils down to this. Duffy was, nominally, supposed to be running the space agency while searching for a permanent replacement. The biggest move he has made is naming Amit Kshatriya, a long-time employee, as NASA’s associate administrator. Kshatriya now has a lot of power within the agency and comes with the mindset of a former flight director. He is not enamored with using SpaceX’s Starship as a lunar lander.