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White House caught in middle of feud between Sean Duffy and Elon Musk

October 24, 2025 | | Print Article

SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy are currently beefing, much to the chagrin of the White House.

The beefing appears to have started on Monday, when Duffy gently accused SpaceX of falling behind schedule in regard to the creation of a manned lunar drone for NASA.

“I’m going to open up the contract,” he said while on CNBC. “I’m going to let other companies compete with SpaceX.”

“We’re not going to wait for one company. We’re going to push this forward and win the second space race against the Chinese,” he added.

Duffy’s criticism didn’t seem to sit well with Musk.

In a tweet posted Monday afternoon, he claimed that his competitors won’t be able to match SpaceX’s speed.

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“SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry,” he wrote. “Starship will end up doing the whole Moon mission. Mark my words.”

The following day, Duffy responded quite amicably to Musk’s post.

“Love the passion,” he tweeted. “The race to the Moon is ON. Great companies shouldn’t be afraid of a challenge. When our innovators compete with each other, America wins!”

Yet later that same day, Musk took to X again to complain about a separate report regarding how the transportation secretary would like to reposition NASA within the federal government so that it’s under the purview of the Transportation Department.

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“Sean Dummy is trying to kill NASA!” he tweeted on Tuesday.

In additional tweets posted Tuesday and Wednesday,  he accused Duffy of having a room-temperature IQ.

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In one post published Tuesday, Musk even presented his followers with a poll mocking Duffy’s past as a reality TV star.

What’s surprising about this feud of sorts is that the White House appears at least privately to be more aligned with Musk.

“Duffy picking a fight with Elon doesn’t sit well with a lot of people because Elon is going to be a pretty big factor in the midterms,” a senior White House official told the Washington Free Beacon.

Yet publicly, the White House is behind Duffy.

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An official White House spokesperson told the Beacon that President Donald Trump has assembled the “greatest cabinet in history, and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is a trusted, valued, and loyal member of the President’s team.”

A NASA spokesperson, meanwhile, told the Beacon that Duffy never meant to attack Musk and that his remarks were geared toward simply introducing competition into the space race.

“It’s a matter of national security and national pride,” they said. “He’s introduced competition from other companies to make sure President Trump is watching from Kennedy Space Center when American astronauts launch to plant our flag again. All companies do better and innovate faster when there’s competition.”

The Beacon notes that Duffy and Musk have been beefing to some extent or another since the beginning of the second Trump administration.

“At the first cabinet meeting in late February, Duffy accused Musk of interfering with his ability to run the Transportation Department by laying off air traffic controllers,” according to the outlet.

Vivek Saxena
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