CNN
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As Elon Musk returns his focus to his businesses, one of his most important companies just had another setback: A SpaceX Starship rocket exploded in an immense fireball Wednesday during a routine ground test.
The explosion marks the fourth failure in a row for SpaceX’s Starship, all while Musk’s other companies and his personal brand struggle to recover after his foray into politics.
Starship is supposed to help reach NASA’s goal of bringing American astronauts back to the moon by 2027: The US space agency is paying SpaceX up to about $4 billion for the mission. Although SpaceX has said that the last three launches before Wednesday’s explosions were successful in testing some elements, all ended in mid-flight failures.
SpaceX has long made the case that failures during the testing and development phase are not the harbingers of disaster they may seem. The company embraces a design philosophy called “rapid iterative development” that emphasizes building relatively low-cost prototypes and launching frequent test flights. SpaceX believes the approach allows the company to hash out rocket designs faster and at cheaper price points than relying on slower, more methodical engineering approaches that can guarantee a vehicle’s success.
But the very fiery Starship explosion comes as Musk has been trying to restore his reputation as he returned to focus on his businesses after a controversial stint in the Trump administration. After several months as a top White House adviser and leading the Department of Government Efficiency, Musk is now taking a step back from full-time government work refocusing his time on his companies, including Tesla, which has struggled in part as a result of Musk’s alliance with the Trump administration.
Upon his return, Musk has sought to promote an image of safety and reliability at Tesla, which is aiming to launch its driverless robotaxis in Austin on Sunday – although the initial phase is expected to be limited less than two dozen cars and Musk has warned the date could shift.
But before the launch, a group of Texas lawmakers have asked Tesla to delay the roll out of its robotaxi service until September, citing a new law on autonomous driving set to take effect. And Tesla’s share price slipped this week, before recovering somewhat, following a report from Business Insider that the company plans to pause production on Cybertruck and Model Y lines for a week at its Austin factory for maintenance, the third such shutdown this year. And in Europe, where Tesla sales have been plunging, Chinese car maker BYD sold more pure battery electric vehicles over Tesla in Europe for the first time, according to a report from JATO, an automotive market research firm.
Musk also has his work cut out for him at his AI company, xAI. Bloomberg reported the company “is burning through $1 billion a month” as the cost of building out its AI model “races ahead of the limited revenues.”
Musk brushed off the report. “Bloomberg is talking nonsense,” he posted on X in response.
Musk also publicly disputed his own AI chatbot Grok, when it posted a fact check about politically motivated violence, noting that “Since 2016, data suggests right-wing political violence has been more frequent and deadly.” That response lines up with most publicly available data.
But Musk didn’t agree. “Major fail, as this is objectively false. Grok is parroting legacy media. Working on it.” he posted.
Musk seems to be brushing off the setbacks, especially with SpaceX. He said last month that he hoped Starship would make its inaugural flight to Mars by the end of next year — a target that looks increasingly unlikely to be met.
“Just a scratch,” he posted after Starship’s explosion before posting “RIP Ship 36” and memes.
When a user asked Musk’s chatbot Grok why Musk was posting memes, Grok responded “The timing suggests it’s likely a humorous comment on the SpaceX Starship explosion that occurred on June 18, rather than targeting a specific person. Musk often uses memes to downplay such setbacks.” Musk responded with a bullseye emoji.
CNN’s Jackie Wattles contributed reporting.
