Elon Musk is giving space a bad name. Some fans are fed up.

Tweeting about impregnating a popstar is a weird thing for anyone to do, especially the CEO of a world class space company. But Elon Musk did it anyway. Why, nobody knows; you know what they say about genius and madness.

Many space enthusiasts saw the incident as just the latest reason to bang their heads against the wall. For years, they watched the mastermind behind SpaceX go from eccentric nerd to Twitter crusader; for years, they tried to ignore it. SpaceX is, after all, the world’s most advanced space company and promises to one day bring humans to Mars; surely a few tweets won’t change that. But just as the company is reaching new heights – it pulled off the first private spacewalk a day after Musk’s Taylor Swift tweet – some fans are reaching their breaking point. Musk, they say, is an embarrassment to the space industry. There’s just one problem: by most measures, SpaceX is the space industry.

It's not hard for space lovers to fall under SpaceX’s spell. Those self-landing boosters, the neat little spacecraft, the shiny megarocket… it’s enough to make any nerd fall in love. But the magic of the company lies in its journey from rebel to kingpin. SpaceX started out as a scrawny startup, founded in 2002 when Musk realized nobody planned to build a Martian colony anytime soon. To Musk, this was shocking; what if disaster struck on Earth and there was no alternative? With his pockets lined with the cash from the sale of PayPal, he decided to see to the matter personally.

In the beginning, SpaceX’s plans to build a reusable rocket – necessary to reach Mars – seemed laughable, especially when its first few models blew up. But SpaceX persisted, even though Musk was all but bankrupt by the time the fourth attempt launched (and finally succeeded). SpaceX had meanwhile caught NASA’s eye, which was the boost the company needed; in a matter of years, SpaceX was hoovering up the global launch market. When it started reusing its Falcon 9 rocket boosters in 2017 – more than halving its launch costs – it was all over. But as its dominance grew, it never lost sight of Mars; realizing that selling launches would never cover the costs of such an undertaking, SpaceX started Starlink, its satellite internet service, as a cash cow. And in 2023, it began launching the massive, fully reusable Starship: the first ever Mars rocket for humans.

It was this mindset that earned SpaceX a spot in many spaceflight enthusiasts’ hearts. Here was a company that took space exploration seriously; instead of scuffling for a profit like its peers, it saw its Earthly business as a stepping stone towards ‘making humanity a multiplanetary species,’ to quote Musk’s favorite slogan (although its bottomless bucket of cash sure helps). Fans (and Musk) often describe SpaceX as sci-fi come to life, and that’s precisely its appeal.

There’s also a level of personal understanding between Musk and SpaceX fans. Musk can be surprisingly open with the public about SpaceX’s activities; he often gives updates or insights via tweet, and has given space Youtuber Tim Dodd of Everyday Astronaut several tours of Starbase, the Starship factory. He’s also known for the occasional (usually dirty) inside joke. But it’s not just Musk’s own following that’s invested in SpaceX; as the company smashes record after record, it has amassed a following of spaceflight enthusiasts who can’t help but admire its achievements – even if they don’t always care for Musk.

In a way, though, SpaceX is the physical manifestation of Musk’s brand of genius with a touch of crazy; that’s probably why the company is as successful as it is. He’s ingrained in every inch of SpaceX’s DNA; you can recognize his influence in everything from its major projects to its unique sense of humor. At first glance, this seems harmless, if a little juvenile; for example, the first integrated Starship model consisted of Booster 4 and Ship 20 (referring to 420, a number associated with smoking weed; ‘Total coincidence!’ tweeted Musk). But it’s not always that innocent; according to a regular stream of lawsuits filed against the company, the place is run like a frat house and teems with sexism, harassment, and workplace injuries.

Then, of course, there are Musk’s tweets.

Some space fans have long lamented Musk’s attention shift from tech to politics, or SpaceX’s tendency to ignore or fire employees complaining of harassment. For the most part, however, this didn’t staunch their enthusiasm for SpaceX’s pursuits. But in the heat of the 2024 US presidential elections, Musk’s antics are becoming difficult to ignore – especially since a big chunk of the fanbase is on ‘space twitter’ (‘spitter’), a corner of the platform Musk owns and posts on hundreds of times a week, and where SpaceX exclusively livestreams its launches.

When he fired off that Taylor Swift tweet, it was more than some fans could handle. ‘That’s it. I want him gone from SpaceX,’ posted user Ben Sharpe, who describes himself as a SpaceX superfan. ‘It’s time we get this incel out of SpaceX,’ posted another frequent Spitter participant. But it got worse. In the days following, Musk managed to post a since-deleted 'joke' about assassinating US President Biden and Vice President Harris and threatened to sue the country’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over its fining SpaceX for launch license violations. This only deepened some SpaceX watchers’ pessimism. ‘There was a time when I felt SpaceX was a net positive in terms of inspiration of youth,’ said Dr Christopher Combs, associate professor in aerodynamics at the University of Texas San Antonio and a regular presence on Spitter, ‘but the tide is turning.’

The fallout of Musk’s posting sprees isn’t unique to SpaceX; recent studies suggest that his right-wing politics are alienating potential Tesla customers as well. But with SpaceX, it’s personal. Most fans have a deep love for space and found a kindred spirit in the company and in Musk, whose awkward, geeky character made him as personable as a tech billionaire could be. Now, some feel they can’t express their passion in public for the fear of being thought of as a Musk zealot. ‘It’s gotten to the point where I’m embarrassed to admit I like SpaceX to my friends because it’s associated with Elon,’ posted Sharpe. User Kyplanet, who runs a space YouTube channel with nearly 35,000 subscribers, feels the same; ‘whenever I say anything about SpaceX to my friends I always preface it with “Elon bad SpaceX good”.’

The timing of Musk’s online antics reaching a fever pitch is especially unfortunate for fans because SpaceX is currently on one hell of a roll. The company is on track to carry 90% of global payload mass to orbit this year, launches a rocket roughly every three days, and accounts for 60% of the roughly 10,000 satellites in orbit. It stepped in when the Boeing Starliner capsule was deemed too risky to bring astronauts back to Earth. It just completed the first private spacewalk during its Polaris Dawn mission. And it operates the largest rocket in history with Starship (though it’s still in testing), a considerable feat of engineering that could revolutionize space travel. Meanwhile, nobody else is even close. Out of the 109 American rockets that successfully reached orbit last year, 96 were SpaceX; its closest competitor was China – yes, the entire country – with 66 successes, and its closest domestic rival was Rocket Lab with eight. It’s safe to say the industry would be a lot duller without it.

In the mainstream, though, SpaceX’s achievements are often overshadowed by Musk himself, much to the frustration of some of the company’s supporters. This was evident during Starship’s testing campaign, which many fans feel was unfairly reported on because of the association with Musk. ‘Mainstream media always conflates Musk and his companies' products. You don't have to go far to see headlines containing "Musk's Starship" or "Elon Musk's Tesla",’ said Charles Boyer, a writer and photographer based in Florida who specializes in spaceflight in that area. To an extent, this is unsurprising; it is Musk’s company, after all, and his pariah status makes for potent headline material. But it also means that the nuances that can come with being a SpaceX fan – loving the art, but rolling your eyes every time the artist opens his mouth – are often lost on the general public. Add that to the fact that anything space-related tends to spark spectacularism in the public realm – and Musk is the human embodiment of spectacularism – and you understand why this meme regularly makes the rounds on Spitter.

But to some fans, the humiliation is the least of their worries; as Musk embarks on his new career as a political activist, there’s growing concern that he’s actively harming SpaceX’s future. ‘His behavior is directly affecting both the public opinion and the progress of his companies,’ argued Sharpe. ‘People are completely overlooking the scientific importance and the whole point of Polaris Dawn because it’s got Elon’s name on it.’ Others fear he’s causing collateral damage to space exploration as a whole. ‘What's sad is that Elon has become so political and so polarizing that he's actually turning a lot of people [off the] entire space industry in general… rockets get a little less cool to the general public every time that guy tweets,’ said Combs. Dave Huntsman, a retired NASA employee who worked at the agency for 46 years, believes some of the damage has already been done: ‘I don’t think he has any idea how much he’s started to hurt SpaceX/humanity’s move into space.’

And considering the guy runs a quasi-monopoly of space launches and satellite internet, it’s not just the public who might be concerned. ‘Living in the world we live in, in which Elon runs this company and it is a private business under his control, we are living off his good graces. That sucks,’ a Pentagon official told Ronan Farrow for the New Yorker, referring to Starlink and its importance to Ukrainian troops. The more Musk’s power and volatility grows, the more spaceflight enthusiasts think SpaceX would be better off without him. ‘His days of usefulness are gone,’ said Ken Kirtland, an industrial designer and avid follower of the space industry. ‘He is nothing but a detriment to [SpaceX] now and that has been clear for a long time.’

While some fans call for his head, others ache for the old Musk: the tech bro who stayed focused on his cars and his rockets and only produced a maximum of one cancel-worthy incident a year. ‘I just miss logging onto Twitter for behind the scenes updates and details of the most exciting rocket program ever,’ tweeted Everyday Astronaut’s Dodd, in response to Musk polling his followers about his involvement in politics; in the replies, several better-known SpaceX watchers emphatically agreed.

Here and there, you can still catch glimpses of the Musk of yesteryear; he’s completely in his element showing Dodd around Starbase, for example, and major updates on Starship appear among his barrage of tweets. But while his attitude may have shifted, his 42% stake in SpaceX and 79% voting power (as of March 2023) ensure he’s not going anywhere. And he’s still very much at the helm of the ship. ‘Elon has his faults,’ said space journalist Eric Berger, who has written two books about the rise of SpaceX, ‘but saying he deserves no credit for Starship is like saying Churchill deserves no credit for winning the Battle of Britain.’

Short of shutting out SpaceX completely – which is impossible for anyone interested in space – the only option for concerned fans is to grit their teeth and remember that it’s not entirely Musk’s show. Gwynne Shotwell, the company’s president and COO, runs the business side of things with a steady hand, serving as the counterweight to her boss’s tirades and reassuring NASA, a major customer. And there’s the thousands of engineers working at SpaceX who, even if they’re encouraged to imitate him, don’t deserve to be lumped in with Musk. The notion that ‘SpaceX should be treated as a collection of talented people instead of centered around one personality,’ as articulated by Spitter frequenter AJ, therefore reverberates through its fanbase like a psalm at mass every time Musk does an oopsie.

But in the end, having Musk at the wheel of SpaceX is just something fans have to learn to live with; it was his Mars-drunken mania that brought the company to where it is today, and his Twitter antics are the other side of that coin. And at least for the foreseeable future, there’s not much that could challenge SpaceX; while Blue Origin and ULA are debuting their shiny new rockets, SpaceX is already lightyears ahead. Still, as space fans fret over the future of the industry, Musk’s Taylor tweet means he might have other things to worry about. ‘I hope he never sees Travis Kelce [in real life],’ said one Spitterer, ‘[because] only one man is coming out alive.’