Former U.S. President Donald Trump and his advisor, Elon Musk, have claimed that NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore were “left behind” at the International Space Station (ISS) for political reasons. They alleged that the previous Biden administration had no plans to return them.
The comments came during Trump and Musk’s first joint interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
During the interview, Hannity asked about the astronauts, saying, “I think they were abandoned.”
Musk responded, “We are speeding up their return at the President’s request. Their mission was delayed for no good reason.”
Trump then added, “They got left in space.”
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Backing Trump’s claim, Musk agreed, saying, “Yes, they were kept up there for political reasons, which is not okay.”
When asked about SpaceX’s plan to bring the astronauts back, Musk reassured, “We’ve successfully returned astronauts from the space station many times before, and we’re confident we’ll do it again.”
When asked about the timeline for bringing the astronauts back, Elon Musk said, “I think it will take about four weeks to bring them back.”
Trump then responded, “You now have the go-ahead.”
Musk replied, “Yes. Well, thanks to you.”
Trump went on to claim that Musk’s company, SpaceX, didn’t have approval under the Biden administration.
“Biden was going to leave them in space. I think he wasn’t planning to bring them back,” Trump added.
The Mission to Bring Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore Home
Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore launched to the International Space Station (ISS) in June 2024 aboard Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. Their mission was originally planned to last just 10 days, but things didn’t go as expected.
After reaching the space station, NASA and Boeing spent weeks trying to fix issues with the Starliner. However, after careful evaluation, they decided it was too risky for the astronauts to return using that spacecraft.
In August 2024, NASA announced that it had asked SpaceX to bring Williams and Wilmore back using the Crew-9 capsule. SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, has been conducting routine ISS missions every six months to rotate crew members.
On January 20, 2025, Musk said that Donald Trump had personally asked him to speed up the astronauts’ return. Musk criticized the Biden administration, calling it “terrible” that Williams and Wilmore were left “stranded” in space for so long. However, NASA had already planned for SpaceX to bring them back months earlier as part of the Crew-9 mission.
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