Elon Musk's behavior became even more intense after becoming the new owner of Twitter. The SpaceX boss even had to convince NASA that Musk's actions on Twitter would not interfere with the collaboration between the two.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he had met SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell. The two met while attending the Kennedy Center Honors event on December 5.
During the meeting, Nelson received assurances from Shotwell that the chaos between Musk and Twitter would not affect SpaceX's performance.
"Tell me that the distractions Elon might have on Twitter won't affect SpaceX," Nelson repeated his question to Shotwell, as quoted from NBC, Tuesday (13/12/2022).
"I assure you, no. You have nothing to worry about," Shotwell replied, according to Nelson.
Nelson said he was not worried about SpaceX even though Musk as CEO was busy with Twitter. Nelson also believes in SpaceX because he knows that the space company is led by Shotwell, not Musk.
"As you know, he has been appointed as the man in charge of SpaceX. So I hear it straight from what we used to call in the south: the mouth of the horse. And he is the horse that runs SpaceX," Nelson said.
SpaceX and NASA have been partners since 2014. NASA has paid billions of dollars to SpaceX to deliver astronauts and cargo on its Falcon rockets and Dragon capsules to the International Space Station.
Recently SpaceX won a contract to deliver NASA astronauts to the Moon in 2025 as part of the Artemis 3 mission. If SpaceX cannot fulfill the contract, it is not impossible that NASA will look to other companies, such as Boeing, Blue Origin or Dynetics.
Even before buying Twitter for $44 billion, Musk's tweets had wreaked havoc on SpaceX. In July, several SpaceX employees complained about Musk's tweets, which he saw as an annoyance and an embarrassment to the company.
Lately, Musk's tweets have also become increasingly political in tone. For example, the world's richest man attacked former White House health adviser Anthony Fauci in a tweet, prompting former NASA astronaut Scott Kelly to defend Fauci.