Musk says SpaceX will prioritize moon city over Mars mission

SpaceX’s logo and an Elon Musk photo, 2026. Photo: iKurd.net/ai

NEW YORK,— Elon Musk said Sunday that SpaceX is now focusing on building a “self-growing city” on the Moon, a project he believes could be completed in under 10 years.

Musk added that SpaceX still plans to pursue a city on Mars within five to seven years, but he said the Moon has become a higher priority because it offers a faster path to “securing the future of civilization.” He shared the update on his social media platform, X.

The announcement follows a Wall Street Journal report Friday, which said SpaceX told investors it would focus on lunar missions first and delay Mars trips.

The company is targeting March 2027 for an uncrewed lunar landing.

Musk had previously said he hoped to send an uncrewed mission to Mars by the end of 2026.

The U.S. faces growing competition from China in returning humans to the Moon. The last human visit to the lunar surface was NASA’s Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Musk also recently announced that SpaceX acquired his artificial intelligence company, xAI. The deal values SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion.

Supporters of the move say it could help SpaceX develop space-based data centers, which Musk believes are more energy efficient than land-based facilities. This is important as demand for computing power rises with AI development.

SpaceX is planning a public offering later this year that could raise up to $50 billion, potentially making it the largest public offering in history.

Musk said Monday on X that NASA will account for less than 5% of SpaceX’s revenue this year. SpaceX holds a $4 billion contract with NASA to land astronauts on the Moon using the Starship vehicle as part of the Artemis program. Musk added that most of SpaceX’s revenue comes from its commercial Starlink internet system.

Earlier Sunday, Musk shared SpaceX’s first Super Bowl advertisement, highlighting Starlink Wi-Fi service.

Musk is also shifting the focus of Tesla, his publicly traded electric vehicle company.

After helping grow the global EV market, Tesla plans to spend $20 billion this year to focus on autonomous driving and robotics.

Last month, Musk said Tesla will end production of two car models at its California factory to make space for manufacturing the Optimus humanoid robots, part of the company’s push into automation and robotics.

(With files from Reuters)