By Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s new administration will likely abolish the White House National Space Council, a Cabinet policy panel that lobbyists at Elon Musk’s SpaceX have been trying to abolish, according to three people familiar with the plans.
Trump aides and SpaceX’s top lobbyist Mat Dunn have told employees in recent months that they see the Space Council as a “waste of time,” the sources said, raising questions about its fate and whether Vice President J.D. Vance will be there. would have an interest in chairing it. as required by law.
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After Trump’s election victory, his team did not contact the space council, chaired by Kamala Harris, as it did with NASA and other agencies about transition plans, one of the sources said. Council staff offices near the White House have been largely emptied, the source said.
Dunn, SpaceX and the heads of former President Joe Biden’s space council did not respond to requests for comment.
The demise of the Space Council would be an early indication of SpaceX’s influence on space policy under Trump.
Musk, the SpaceX CEO who has spent a quarter of a billion dollars helping Trump back into the White House, has maintained close ties with the president and has worked with him on plans to send missions to Mars during his second term.
Trump appointed Jared Isaacman, a Musk employee and longtime SpaceX customer, to head NASA in December. In November, Trump joined Musk at SpaceX mission control in Texas for the company’s sixth Starship test launch, pursued by a Mars-tuned rocket that could play a role in potential Mars missions.
The Biden administration ensured that the council, which hosted one public council meeting a year when necessary, could largely focus on building international alliances and rules in space.
In 2023, the council released a proposal that frustrated the private space industry as it sought to implement “mission authorization,” which would have resulted in greater U.S. government oversight of corporate activities in space.
Trump’s first administration in 2017 revived the Space Council after it was disbanded in 1993 to spearhead the creation of the US Space Force and as a platform for launching policies such as returning humans to the moon and reforming of regulations for commercial space launches.
If the council is scrapped, two sources say, Trump’s team would look to build on some of those space policy efforts from his first term while making good on a campaign promise to cut federal bureaucracy, a key task which has been entrusted to the efficiency team of Musk’s government.
Views on the value of the Space Council have varied across presidential administrations, with some seeing it as a copy of smaller, space-focused offices in the White House, while others believing it would enable faster action on space priorities.
Audrey Schaffer, former head of space policy for Biden’s National Security Council, defended the space council’s role in an op-ed on Monday.
“Without a team dedicated to space policy,” Schaffer said, “the sheer volume of issues the White House staff must address on a daily basis quickly crowds out any space agenda.”
(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Joe Brock; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
