SpaceX gets FAA approval to ramp up Starship launches from Texas
By Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - SpaceX on Tuesday received key U.S. regulatory approval to increase the annual rate of Starship rocket launches from Texas and booster landings in various bodies of water, allowing Elon Musk's company to significantly expand development of its giant Mars rocket.
The Federal Aviation Administration, capping a years-long review, said SpaceX's proposal to increase the number of Texas Starship launches from five to 25 will not have a major impact on the surrounding environment, nor would associated booster landings or potential rocket explosions over the Gulf of Mexico and some international waters.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Chris Reese)
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Jun 9, 2025 3:56 PM On this epsiode of Uncanny Valley, our senior politics editor joins us to unpack the collapse of the relationship between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. Tesla CEO Elon Musk shakes hands with U.S. President Donald Trump as they speak to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025, in Washington, DC. Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Photograph:WIRED's senior politics editor Leah Feiger and Zoë Schiffer, WIRED's director of business and industry discuss the ongoing fallout between President Trump and Elon Musk, and its implications for the future of DOGE. Mentioned in the episode: Conspiracy World Thinks the Musk-Trump Breakup Is a 'Psyop' by David Gilbert DOGE Is on a Recruiting Spree by Makena Kelly and Vittoria Elliott Silicon Valley Is Starting to Pick Sides in Musk and Trump's Breakup by Lauren Goode WIRED Talked to a Fired DOGE Staffer About Who Was Really in Charge by Vittoria Elliott Trumpworld Is Getting Tired of Laura Loomer. They Hope the President Is Too by Jake Lahut The Epic Rise and Fall of a Dark-Web Psychedelics Kingpin by Andy Greenberg You can follow Zoë Schiffer on Bluesky at @zoeschiffer and Leah Feiger on Bluesky at @leahfeiger. Write to us at uncannyvalley@ How to Listen You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for 'uncanny valley.' We're on Spotify too. Transcript Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors. Zoë Schiffer: Hi, this is Zoë. Before we start, I want to take the chance to remind you that we really want to hear from you. Do you have a question about AI, politics, or privacy that's been on your mind recently or a topic that you wish we'd talked about on the show? If so, you can write to us at uncannyvalley@ And if you listen to and enjoy our episodes, please, please rate them on your podcast app of choice. It honestly really helps other people find us. Welcome to WIRED's Uncanny Valley . I'm WIRED's director of business and industry, Zoë Schiffer. Today on the show we dive into the growing rift between the Trump administration and Elon Musk, who led the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and now claims he's stepping down. Since Musk announced his departure last month, he's launched a flurry of criticism towards the new Republican budget bill. On X, He's called the bill a disgusting abomination and said that members of Congress should kill it. It's a surprising departure from the lockstep relationship that Musk and Trump maintained basically since the inauguration. We'll dive into what went down and what it might mean for the future of DOGE. I'm joined today by Leah Feiger, senior politics editor at WIRED. Welcome to the show, Leah. Leah Feiger: Hey, Zoë. Thanks for having me. Zoë Schiffer: We're re-recording something we tried to record yesterday when Elon Musk and Donald Trump were in the middle of their growing spat, but over the course of the day, it completely devolved. Now it looks like a full-on breakup, and so here we are again. The boys are fighting, stuff is getting really messy. Can we just go over what happened yesterday? Because when we logged on, I hadn't even seen the tweets yet. I'd had a nice morning without them, and then things got so crazy so fast. Leah Feiger: It got bananas. While we were recording, everything truly took a turn. It's all really been building up over the last couple of days when Musk was repeatedly posting criticisms at Trump and the Republican budget reconciliation package known as the Big Beautiful Bill. He was posting memes, Kill Bill memes, etc., etc., but this really actually kind of came to a head on Thursday when Trump was asked about his relationship with Musk during a press conference with German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz. Trump was not super diplomatic in his answer and said, "Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore." And then he compared Musk to past aides who have developed in his words, "Trump derangement syndrome" after leaving the administration. Zoë Schiffer: I mean, it's such a crazy about face from a week ago when Elon Musk and Donald Trump held a press conference together in the Oval Office saying that Elon Musk was supposedly leaving the Department of Government Efficiency. And Trump gave Elon a key, he said he would be back and forth. He made it really clear that they were like the ties were strong and they were going to continue. But honestly, during that press conference, Elon had a really gnarly black eye. And I did have the thought like, "Trump is so image conscious. I bet he's kind of pissed about this." And it actually did become a sticking point, which is so funny. Leah Feiger: Totally. I mean, Trump brought it up in that same press conference in the Oval Office yesterday with Merz, where he was like, "Oh, and I offered him makeup to cover that black eye, but he didn't want it." These two are two of the biggest egos out there, but they've been in lockstep, so everyone getting ready and anticipating this breakup has been wild. And then obviously right after the conference, Musk started tweeting outrageously. I mean, he said that Trump would've lost the election- Zoë Schiffer: And he did not stop. He did not stop. Leah Feiger: He did not stop. He did not stop. He said that Trump would've lost the election without him. He also brought up Epstein. He said that. Yeah, it was absolutely wild. Zoë Schiffer: That's the real nuclear one, the nuclear option. Leah Feiger: Yeah. He said that basically the Department of Justice did not release the Epstein file because Trump was implicated at it. It was massive. Zoë Schiffer: Oh my gosh. Leah Feiger: Conspiracy world lost their mind, absolutely lost their mind. Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. Leah Feiger: Grown men fighting is maybe my favorite sport. Zoë Schiffer: I mean, nothing better, nothing better. I was a little scared it would end in nuclear war, but until that point, the popcorn was out and I was ready and waiting. Let's get to the conspiracy of it all because I also had the thought early on in the fighting yesterday like, "Is this all kind of a staged distraction?" I think there's always this tendency with Elon Musk in particular and also for Donald Trump to assign more strategy to what they're doing than what is actually going on. Leah Feiger: Well, I mean, because the safer option. This is the richest man in the world and the President of the United States. I would like to believe that there is thought behind any of this. Zoë Schiffer: 100%. Leah Feiger: And that's exactly what a bunch of these conspiracy theorists have been saying over the last 24 hours. Senior reporter, David Gilbert, published a story today about how the entire conspiracy world thinks that the Musk-Trump breakup is a PSYOP, it's 5D chess. It's messy, messy, messy. We're talking posts of people just being like, "No, no, no, this is their plan. It's all to go the Democrats into publishing the Epstein files fully." It's kind of wild to behold, honestly, but I think we're about to see a bit of a fissure in Republican politics really for the first time in about eight months, nine months, they've had a good run. Zoë Schiffer: Okay, I feel like we need to take a few steps back and just talk about how did we get here? Leah Feiger: Is their relationship still useful to the other? Elon Musk is still the richest man in the world, and as annoyed as Trump may be right now, they have a lot of very still shared vested interests. Musk has a lot of contracts with the US government that he probably doesn't want to risk. They have some Qatari interests. There's a lot of business there, but this bill seems like it's becoming a sticking point. We'll have to see. Zoë Schiffer: Right. And I feel like to that point, one of Musk's main, at least public grievances about it, is that it adds to the debt deficit, but also one of the provisions in the bill is that it reduces electric vehicle credits. Obviously, this is an issue for Elon Musk and Tesla. So how much of that do you think is impacting his views here? Leah Feiger: Again, I can't get fully into his head, but as much as Elon Musk has been like, "Reduce the deficit, reduce the deficit, this is the goal of DOGE, we're going to cut $2 million," that don't even really exist in US federal spending. So in terms of cutting the deficit, it's hard for me to actually ascribe his motivations there. Does he care? I'm not 100% convinced. Does he care about Tesla? Absolutely, and you're exactly on the money with the EV credit. I mean, I think it was something last year, Tesla had spent at least a quarter of a million dollars lobbying on behalf of the electric vehicle tax credit that gets cut in this bill. And that's a lot of money, that's a lot of time. Musk also was reportedly doing a lot of advocating for the credit behind the scenes, and so I could very much see this kind of being a little bit of a, "Screw you. I did all of this for you, I asked for this one really big thing, and you still have it in there anyways." And like you said about the egos, I could really see it in so many ways coming down to that, and I have to mention, because this has also been going on, obviously things have not been super smooth sailing for Musk with the White House 100% of the time for the last few months, and the other thing that's come up in the last few days, which has come up before, is Musk has really liked picking people that are taking certain government positions. A couple of days ago, it was over the weekend, I believe, this man named Jared Isaacman, who is this Musk ally, was nominated for NASA administrator, and Trump has removed that. And Musk has run into these issues with Scott Bessent, secretary of the Treasury, with Sean Duffy from transportation. And so it's hard to say exactly what the one thing is, but all of this together, the EV tax credits, the not being able to actually say who's going to be in charge, I could see this being very much not enjoyable for him, let's just say. Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, I mean it's worth pointing out that issues with recognition and support with electric vehicles is a large reason why Elon Musk had his big falling out with the Biden administration because he felt really snubbed when they had this EV summit at the White House and didn't invite Tesla, which honestly does seem like a bizarre oversight. Leah Feiger: Yeah, I think we can all say that now. Zoë Schiffer: Yes, we got to give him that. But it also seems true that Elon Musk and his associates have been talking about the deficit for a long time. I think there's this view with the Silicon Valley elite that you should look at the US government like a startup, and you need to get in there and balance the budget. Unfortunately, I think that job has been a little harder than it was when he took over Twitter, but I do think there's some level of whether or not he was ever going to be able to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. I think that seemed very, very far-fetched, a genuine fear about reckless spending. And this bill is kind of another example that like, "Oh, the Trump administration talked this talk about wanting to get things under control, but in fact, it's just like the prior administrations in a lot of ways." Leah Feiger: Without a doubt and great memory about the Biden-EV debacle. I haven't been able to stop thinking about really the first time that I heard Musk pitch something DOGE-like to Trump was when he invited Trump last year onto an X space, and it was a very long rambling broadcast, but there was a very key moment where Musk is like, "I think I should work for the government. I think I should work for you and help you figure all this stuff out." And that happened kind of in lockstep with Trump talking about electric vehicles and being like, "And we have to support oil and gas." And Musk really skated right over that. He was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyways, I'm going to help you with the government." And to me it's like figuring out what people's priorities are? What do you actually care about? What are you bringing into this? And like you've said, we keep coming back to his companies are still really his children in this way. And yeah, I can't wait to see how this all unfolds. Zoë Schiffer: I know, big, big, same. This is also not, I mean, you've mentioned this a couple of times, not the first time that Elon Musk and Trump have had a disagreement, and particularly not the first time since Elon Musk has really sparred with members of the Trump administration. It also feels like tariffs were a big moment where they did not see eye to eye. So can we just mention that briefly? Leah Feiger: Yeah, absolutely. It's gotten into fights, so Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the collapse of USAID, that was a fun one. There were reports of them actually screaming at each other during a cabinet meeting. He's gotten into it, like we said, with Bessent and Duffy at various points. He called Peter Navarro, this Trump senior trade advisor, "A moron," that is his word here, after Navarro was trying to weigh in on... What was it? It was the Tesla assembly process for EVs. Zoë Schiffer: Right, right, right, right. Yeah, saying that they weren't actually assembled in the US. Leah Feiger: Yeah, so he hasn't minced his words, so that's I guess something that I would very much want to explicitly get out there is right now it feels sort of wild because he's just attacking the administration and Republican Party on X, the platform that he has used for the last year to quite literally get Republicans elected, but he's been having these weird little fights and big fights quite a bit over the last few months. This moment is also kind of strange because he just might no longer be under the Trump protection umbrella. Zoë Schiffer: Right, completely. It really does feel like both of them thinks in their head, not that I know exactly what's going on, but you can speculate that, "Oh no, the other guy needs me way more than I need him." Leah Feiger: Totally. Zoë Schiffer: You can kind of both get the sense that they think that. And it's a little bit TBD which one of those is more true. Leah Feiger: Totally. And honestly, I think that if I was Trump, I'd be looking at Musk's lack of popularity regarding a lot of the DOGE stuff. I'd be looking at the fact that he wasn't able to sway the very specific judge race in Wisconsin despite dumping lots of money into it and say, "How much power does this guy actually have if I am not also giving it to him, if I am not inviting him on stage, if I am not inviting him to the White House, what can he wield against me?" Zoë Schiffer: Exactly. Okay, that feels like a good place to stop, so we'll take a short break and we'll be right back. Welcome back to Uncanny Valley . I'm here today with Senior Politics Editor, Leah Feiger. It feels like we have to start talking about the children of this divorce because there are a lot of them and they were having all kinds of reactions yesterday. My favorite one was when the rapper known as Kanye West was like, "Bro, stop fighting." I really lost my mind. But then there are actual politicians, I mean so many of them who are caught in the middle wondering, "Wow, we've really given our all to both of these men. Who do we choose?" Leah Feiger: Yeah, the politicians are going to have to decide. And like your desk published yesterday as well from Correspondent Lauren Goode, Silicon Valley businessmen and entrepreneurs are also going to have to pick sides here. This doesn't really seem like something that's going to go away overnight, although there have been reports this morning from sources in the White House that everyone's very committed to finding a solution, but it's been conflicting. Who's to say these guys, will they calm down? Will they take it to Twitter? I just want to make sure that I have my notifications set up. Zoë Schiffer: Absolutely. And the DOGE of it all, I mean we still have no reason to believe that DOGE is going to be stopping its activities in the US government, correct? Leah Feiger: No, definitely not. And we've published a story today, in fact, about how DOGE is actively recruiting. Over the last few days, we've had a number of stories. DOGE has actually given full-time government status, government-working status to three of its original members, Edward Coristine, who goes by Big Balls, Ethan Shaotran, and Luke Farritor. I mean, the kids that have been running the government now get to say they're officially and full-time running the government. Zoë Schiffer: I love that. Leah Feiger: It's a very weird thing. Zoë Schiffer: Neither here nor there, but they've really reclaimed the name Big Balls. I hear them say it themselves all the time when Elon Musk's friends call him that. I was like, "Okay." There was a moment of embarrassment and then they were like, "No, no, no, we're loud and proud about this." Leah Feiger: That's because they're honestly really good at this. That's all I can say. We're still in the midst of a government takeover that was kind of initiated by a man who is currently on outs with the president and they're still there. They are so embedded. Zoë Schiffer: They're still there. Leah Feiger: So all of these things together and stay tuned, friends, because WIRED has so much more to come on this. DOGE isn't going anywhere. DOGE isn't going anywhere. DOGE isn't going anywhere. Zoë Schiffer: That has been Leah's refrain in our newsroom since Elon Musk started claiming he was stepping down. She has been loud about it, and credit work credit is due, you've also been 100% correct. So I mean, I guess this gets to one of my final questions, which is just even if Elon Musk does start spending more time at Tesla, SpaceX, X, xAI, his other companies where investors are a bit displeased with his distraction with the government, what does that actually mean? Is DOGE just the US Government at this point? Is there a distinction we can draw? Does it matter if Elon himself is spending less time in Washington, D.C.? Leah Feiger: That is such a good question. The flashy bit appears to be leaving. Elon Musk is not going to be going on Fox News giving a lovely elongated panel about how DOGE is doing incredible things and saving the government. Like you reported, Nicole Hollander, one of his key lieutenants is leaving. Steve Davis is leaving. He's taking Katie Miller, Stephen Miller's wife with him as well. But what does that exactly leave behind? It leaves behind a lot of these key lieutenants that we've been talking about, these young guys who have this loyalty to Musk and who have been with him since the very beginning, and a couple of other leaders as well that do appear to at least for right now, be sticking around. Last week, WIRED reported that a Turkish green card holder named Baris Akis, who has taken a very senior leadership role in DOGE, working closely alongside Steve Davis in helping hire and recruit. He's a longtime Musk loyalist, but he's also a foreign national who's not actually supposed to be working for the government, and Trump officials previously told the Atlantic that he wasn't. What's happening to him and those around him kind of remains to be seen, but right now, I think you hit it exactly that DOGE is government now. DOGE is boring. The worst part about a government takeover is when it becomes old news. It's still happening, we are still in this, they are still getting their ways into a lot of different agencies and a lot of data and contracts and what have you, but without Musk, is it going to get the attention? Are people going to realize what's happening? I hope so. I definitely hope so because it's certainly not going anywhere. Zoë Schiffer: Yeah, no, I completely agree. I think it has been normalized in a way, the bar for what is a shocking news story about behavior by and with the US government is so much higher than it was in January and certainly higher than it was in even Trump's first term. It also feels worth saying that some of the agency leaders who aren't even officially associated with Elon Musk, but definitely have ties to people in his orbit and were hired around at the same time, definitely seemed to be continuing to push DOGE-like projects, 50% cuts, aggressive cost savings, all of that. And so, again, whether or not Elon Musk himself in Washington, D.C. is leading DOGE, it feels like he's really made his mark kind of like he did on Silicon Valley, where all of a sudden RTO, return to office, the year of efficiency, the year of austerity, all of these things that he had been promoting became normalized throughout Silicon Valley and kind of just became the culture. Leah Feiger: 100%, I think that's totally right. And at the end of the day, you don't get paid a lot working in government. You really get paid in your connections and what happens after, and your investment opportunities as elicit as they may be. And so I think that a lot of these folks, at least we would be in their position, they're looking ahead. A lot of these DOGE kids, like we've been reporting, they're former Musk interns. They have been at Neuralink, they have been at Tesla, they have been at SpaceX. They are 20 years old. They have a long life. Are they going to want to work in the US government forever? I'm going to guess no here. There's a lot you would want to do to stay in Elon Musk's good graces. Keep him apprised of what's happening at his old place of work. Zoë Schiffer: Oh my gosh. Okay, we're going to take one more quick break and when we come back we'll share our recommendations for what to check out on this week. Welcome back to Uncanny Valley. I'm Zoë Schiffer, WIRED's Director of Business and Industry. I'm joined by WIRED's Senior politics Editor, Leah Feiger. Before we take off, Leah, tell our listeners what they absolutely need to read on the website today. Leah Feiger: Zoë, thank you so much for having me. This has been such a joy. The article that I would recommend besides our countless pieces on Musk and DOGE and all of these things would be an article from our new Senior Writer Jake Lahut, all about Laura Loomer and Trump World's relationship with her. She is this consummate influencer, this advisor who's been wielding so much power in the Trump administration over the last few months. And Jake takes us on a really juicy, gossipy wormhole, her history, what people think of her, what she thinks of them. It's great. It's the first edition of his Takeover of The Politics Lab Newsletter, and he's fantastic. It's fantastic. Highly recommend. Zoë Schiffer: I loved it. I'm a huge Jake promoter in the newsroom. I feel like his coverage is my absolute dream. It's just straight gossip, mean comments. It's so good. It's everything you want from the Trump world. Leah Feiger: It's very Zoë-coded. It's so good. Zoë Schiffer: Yes, thank you. Thank you. Complimentary. If you don't have something nice to say, come sit next to me. Okay, so I actually think we talked about this on the show the other week, but I finally got around to reading Andy Greenberg's article about the DMT Kingpin, and it was straight up one of the best features I've read in such a long time. It's this story of this totally normal dude who figures out how to cook DMT in his garage and starts raking in millions and millions of dollars, is on the run for years and years and years, is living the high life, thinks he is totally fine, and then the feds catch up with him, but then the ending is not as tragic as you think. So it's like a crazy, crazy wild ride. I haven't stopped thinking about it since, and it's also kind of scary. So that's my rec. Leah Feiger: Andy is unreal. There's so much good from Andy. Zoë Schiffer: He's so good. Leah Feiger: So good. Zoë Schiffer: The writing was absolutely beautiful. Leah Feiger: Fantastic. Zoë Schiffer: That's it for our show today. Adriana Tapia and Jordan Bell produced this episode. Amar Lal mixed this episode. Jake Lummus was our New York studio engineer. Jordan Bell is our executive producer. Condé Nast head of global audio is Chris Bannon, and Katie Drummond is WIRED's global editorial director.
