Trump, Facing Sinking Approval on Earth, Sets Sights on Colonizing the Moon

This week, President Donald Trump — facing increasingly worse approval ratings on issues ranging from the Iran war to immigration — is touting a U.S. program to colonize the moon.

“Under NASA’s Artemis program, American astronauts will soon return to establish a permanent American presence on the moon,” Trump said, in remarks unveiling a supposed “New Golden Age” of science initiatives on Thursday.

“And then, we will go to Mars,” Trump added.

The remarks were meant to unveil the administration’s initiative to funnel $6 billion into artificial intelligence companies, including NVIDIA, Anthropic and Google, and OpenAI, as well as investments in AI infrastructure in partnership with universities across 10 states, a White House press release said. The release also touted that Trump has “replaced DEI with merit across the Federal R&D enterprise,” and said that the administration is “bringing back national missions.” It does not mention the Artemis program.

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios characterized the announcement as “the most transformative day for the American scientific enterprise since the reshaping of the Federal research ecosystem following World War II,” perhaps ignoring the tens of billions of dollars of scientific grants that the administration has sought to cut under sweeping initiatives by Elon Musk last year.

The White House’s X account also touted the program on Thursday.

Shortly after bragging about Artemis, Trump gave Musk the National Medal of Science, calling him “one of the greatest technology founders to ever live.”

Musk’s SpaceX is a major recipient of government funding, often partnering with NASA, including in its Artemis missions. It raked in billions of dollars worth of contracts as Musk slashed government programs and research, often illegally, under his “Department of Government Efficiency” program.

Trump praised Musk for four minutes straight, before moving on to grant awards to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, and Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su. The four tech leaders were also all invited to a White House dinner with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week.

Later in the press conference, Trump was also given an award — his uncle’s National Medal of Science.

Tech billionaires have played a major role in shaping Trump’s space exploration policies. Space exploration requires massive taxpayer investment in tech companies like SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin — while also fueling the U.S.’s battle for dominance with China in the 21st century space race.

In the past decades, Musk in particular has repeatedly touted that his company is set to colonize Mars. More recently, he has scaled that back to colonizing the moon, saying earlier this year that SpaceX is focused on “building a self-growing city on the Moon” and that that could be achieved in less than a decade — a claim he made about Mars 10 years ago.

NASA’s Artemis was first established by Trump during his first term in 2017, with the ultimate goal of establishing a base on the Moon. NASA has announced plans to build a moon base near the moon’s south pole.

Trump has bragged about the program several times. In a post on Truth Social last month, he posted a picture of the moon with text over it that said “the moon is ours,” with an American flag.

The Artemis program had already spent nearly $100 billion by 2024, and has been criticized as wasteful — especially amid an affordability and energy crisis here on Earth, caused in large part by Trump policies slashing welfare and spurring war.

The White House was mocked for the plan on social media, with users pointing out that the administration couldn’t even successfully line the Reflecting Pool, and that it has made other sky-high promises that it hasn’t kept.