Elon Musk opting not to talk about his ambitious plans to colonize Mars, now that’s a first. The rocket billionaire was a no-show for a company discussion on establishing human settlements on the Red Planet, which was meant to take place on the same day as Starship’s most recent test flight. The megarocket’s mid performance may have been the leading cause behind Musk’s last-minute change of plans, or maybe he was busy finding ways to avoid paying child support.
In an emailed statement on Monday, SpaceX announced that Musk was going to discuss the company’s plans for colonizing Mars. The company talk was set to be livestreamed on SpaceX’s X page and its website on Tuesday at 1 p.m. ET. Instead of streaming Musk’s overly eager ramblings, the webcast remained silent before delaying the start time to 1:10 p.m. and then another time to 1:15 p.m., and finally pushing it until 9 p.m. ET. On that same day, Starship’s liftoff was scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET, so delaying the talk meant Musk was supposed to speak after the rocket’s test flight instead of before. Musk, however, did neither.
We’re not entirely sure why the world’s richest man failed to show up yesterday for the big Mars talk, so we’ve put together a list of other things Musk might have been doing instead of indulging in his favorite topic—colonizing the Red Planet.
Cheating in video games
What do you do when you have an accumulated wealth of $400 billion? If you’re Musk, you might just pay people to play video games for you.
Earlier this year, reports surfaced suggesting that Musk has used boosted characters in games like Diablo and PoE2. The SpaceX CEO often leans into his gamer persona as part of his personal brand, but he later admitted in direct messages on X to a gaming buddy that he does, in fact, pay others to play for him.
Healing from his toxic relationship with Trump
Musk and Donald Trump were inseparable throughout the president’s campaign, to which he generously donated $288 million. He got especially chummy with Trump once he was back in the White House. It seems, however, that the two are drifting apart.
This week, Musk admitted that he is disappointed with Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill,’ which he says undermines the work of the Department of Government Efficiency, which he spearheads. Musk also complained that the administration is using DOGE as a scapegoat. “DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” Musk told The Washington Post in a recent interview. “Something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”
It’s not like we didn’t see this coming, but even rocket billionaires can get tangled up in the wrong relationship.
Being a terrible father
Musk has been criticized for not being a good father to his 13 children (or whatever the number actually is). The SpaceX CEO is often seen in public with his son X, who he shares with the musician Grimes, but his other kids don’t seem to get the same amount of attention.
The mother of one of Musk’s children, MAGA influencer Ashley St. Clair, recently sold her Tesla in retaliation to Musk allegedly not paying enough money in child support. The billionaire’s own father, who is also famously known for bad parenting, called Musk a bad father in an interview earlier this year. Musk also has an estranged relationship with his trans daughter Vivian, whom he publicly refers to as “dead.”
Watching Starship flop yet again
There was a lot riding on Starship’s Tuesday launch. The rocket had suffered back-to-back glitches that resulted in two explosions during the last two test flights. SpaceX reported that it had identified the problem and made “several hardware changes” ahead of Starship’s ninth flight, according to a statement.
Starship blasted off from its launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas, a few minutes past 7:30 p.m. ET. Things were going smoothly at first, until around 30 minutes after liftoff when SpaceX announced that Starship had fallen into an unrecoverable spin as the result of the loss of attitude control. SpaceX managed to push Starship further than in the previous two tests, but its latest flight was a rocky affair that failed to achieve a number of key goals. Indeed, the Super Heavy booster—the first to be reflown in a fully integrated test—never made it back to the launch mount.
Starship is a key part of Musk’s plans to send humans to Mars, which he claimed could happen in 2026. At least, that was part of the announcement for “The Road to Making Life Multiplanetary” talk, which he flaked on at the last minute. Perhaps scheduling it on the same day as Starship’s test flight was a bit of a risk, and anything Musk had to say during his talk would have been nullified by the rocket’s less-than-ideal performance. Still, it’s rude to leave us hanging like that.
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