CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — Governor Gavin Newsom is backing Elon Musk in the billionaire’s dispute with a California agency that rejected a plan to increase SpaceX’s rocket launches off the Pacific coast.
“I support Elon,” Newsom, a Democrat, said in an interview late Thursday after campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris in North Carolina. “I didn’t like that.”
Musk on Tuesday sued the California Coastal Commission in federal court in Los Angeles, saying it “engaged in naked political discrimination” when commissioners cited his support for former President Donald Trump in rejecting a Defense Department proposal to expand the number of SpaceX launches at Vandenberg. Space Force Base.
“Look, I’m not helping the lawsuit,” Newsom acknowledged. He added: “You can’t bring up that explicit level of politics.”
Newsom indicated that he broadly agreed with the lawsuit and that the independent body should have limited its debate to the merits of the permit rather than wading into a discussion about Musk’s political activities.
“These are friends of mine who said that,” said Newsom, who is appointing a number of members. ‘These are good commissioners. But you have to mention balls and strikes. And trust me, I’m not really into the Elon Musk bandwagon right now. So that’s me calling balls and strikes.”
Newsom spoke with Musk on X about everything from state protections for transgender and gay students in schools to a bill the governor signed to ban political deepfakes. Musk responded to a measure banning AI-generated content before the November election by calling Newsom an evil comedy character. “The Joker is in charge,” Musk wrote on X, repeating the insult in an interview.
There has also been significant noise between Musk and California officials over his shaky moves of his companies to cities outside San Francisco or California.
And Newsom has mercilessly attacked Trump on numerous issues. In the interview with POLITICO, Newsom took the former president to task for threatening to withhold significant amounts of federal emergency funding if California did not respond to his many demands, which the governor said were disconnected from reality.
Newsom said that while it was “encouraging in this regard that Elon saw the light of day” in understanding that punishing political opponents is wrong, the fact that the ultra-rich tech, aerospace and auto titan has donated at least $75 million to Trump helping him become president again “goes to another question about his character, or his consistency in character.”
The California Coastal Commission’s 6-4 rejection of the Air Force’s plan for more launches was based on concerns that all SpaceX activities would be considered military operations, making it more difficult to enforce environmental requirements. But the hours-long debate before the vote devolved into a discussion about Musk’s political rhetoric, his support for Trump, his comments about transgender people and his companies’ job performance.
“Elon Musk is hopping around the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA, all while claiming he wants to help hurricane victims with free Starlink internet access,” said Commissioner Gretchen Newsom, who is not related to the governor. the meeting last week in San Diego.
Gretchen Newsom and Chairman Caryl Hart both voted to reject the plan after condemning Musk’s behavior. Commissioners Mike Wilson and Justin Cummings also raised concerns about Musk himself or SpaceX’s labor practices, but ultimately voted in favor of the launch increase. Wilson was appointed by Newsom, while Hart and Cummings were appointed by the state Assembly and Gretchen Newsom by the state Senate.
Newsom emphasized that his appointees had voted in favor of the authorization and that his administration had worked with the Defense Department prior to the vote to reach a compromise on the proposal to increase the number of missile launches.
“I have no control over that committee, infamously, in any way, shape or form, but two appointees did what I thought was the right thing,” he said. “We worked with Space Force. We worked with the base commander [Colonel Mark Shoemaker] there in good faith.”
The two sides appeared to reach a detente heading into last week’s meeting after the Air Force, which oversees the Space Force, agreed in September to meet the commission’s seven conditions, including reducing noise and more intensive monitoring of wildlife.
“Our team worked with them behind the scenes, Dee Dee [Myers]Wade [Crowfoot]Others, there were legitimate concerns raised by coastal staff,” Newsom told POLITICO on Thursday, referring to his business adviser and his director of natural resources.
“We were trying to find compromises. It wasn’t about SpaceX, it was about exploration and other precedents,” Newsom said. “So I saw that [decision, and thought] that wasn’t the point. … They certainly could have said, ‘We’re just not comfortable with it [the proposal] right now.” But that wasn’t what they said.”
