SpaceX prioritises lunar 'self-growing city' over Mars project: Musk

Elon Musk has said that SpaceX has shifted its focus to building a "self-growing city" on the moon, which could be achieved in less than 10 years.

SpaceX still intends to start on Musk's long-held ambition of a city on Mars within five to seven years, he wrote on his X social media platform, "but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster".

Musk's comments echo a Wall Street Journal report on Friday, which said SpaceX has told investors it would prioritize going to the moon and attempt a trip to Mars at a later time, targeting March 2027 for an uncrewed lunar landing.

This marks a shift from Musk's long-standing focus on Mars as SpaceX's primary destination.

As recently as last year, he said the company aimed to launch an uncrewed Mars mission by the end of 2026.

"No, we're going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction," he said in Jan last year in response to a post on X.

Musk has a long record of setting ambitious timelines for projects such as electric vehicles and self-driving technology that have repeatedly failed to materialise on schedule.

Race with China

The US faces intense competition from China to return humans to the moon this decade. Humans have not visited the lunar surface since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Less than a week ago, Musk said that SpaceX acquired the artificial intelligence company he also leads, xAI, in a deal that values the rocket and satellite company at $1 trillion and the AI outfit at $250 billion.

Proponents of the move view it as a way for SpaceX to bolster its plans for space-based data centres, which Musk sees as more energy efficient than terrestrial facilities as the demand for compute power soars with AI development.

SpaceX is hoping a public offering later this year could raise as much as $50 billion, which could make it the largest public offering in history.

On Monday, Musk said in response to a user on X that Nasa will constitute less than 5% of SpaceX's revenue this year.

SpaceX is a core contractor in Nasa's Artemis moon programme with a $4 billion contract to land astronauts on the lunar surface using Starship.

"Vast majority of SpaceX revenue is the commercial Starlink system," Musk said. On Sunday, Musk shared the company's first Super Bowl ad, promoting its Starlink Wi-Fi service. Even as Musk reorients SpaceX, he is also pushing his publicly traded company, Tesla, in a new direction. After virtually building the global EV market, Tesla is planning to spend $20 billion this year as part of an effort to pivot to autonomous driving and robots.

To speed up the shift, Musk said Jan Tesla is ending production of two car models at its California factory to make room for manufacturing its Optimus humanoid robots. Reuters