- - Elon Musk says SpaceX to shift focus from colonizing Mars to moon

Eric Lagatta, USA TODAYFebruary 10, 2026 at 3:08 AM

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Elon Musk is putting his dreams of colonizing Mars on hold.

Instead, the world's richest man said SpaceX, his commercial rocket company, will turn its attention a little closer to home: the moon. The news represents a significant shift for Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002 with the stated goal of helping humanity reach Mars and "make life multiplanetary."

But the moon, where even NASA aims to return astronauts as early as 2028, appears to have become a much more feasible target destination for Musk – at least in the short term.

For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years. The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2026

"SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the moon," Musk said Sunday, Feb. 8 in a post on social media site X, which he owns. The billionaire tech mogul added that setting up a sustained human presence on the moon is achievable in the next decade, or about half the time he projects it would take to get established on Mars.

1 / 132025 spaceflight in photos. See images of Blue Origin, SpaceX missionsFirefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander captures its shadow on the moon's surface after completing a successful landing March 2 near a volcanic feature on the moon called Mons Latreille. The vehicle became the first of two landers manufactured by a U.S. company to reach the moon is 2025 in crucial missions to lay the groundwork for NASA to return humans to the lunar surface in the years ahead.

Here's everything to know about Musk's vision of setting up a lunar colony, and the status of his plan for SpaceX to send humans to Mars.

What is SpaceX? Does Elon Musk own it?

Elon Musk is pictured March 4, 2025 on the day of U.S. President Donald Trump's speech to a joint session of Congress.

SpaceX is the commercial spaceflight company that Elon Musk, the world's richest man, founded in 2002. Musk, a former close adviser of President Donald Trump, is also the chief executive of SpaceX.

SpaceX's Falcon 9 – the most active rocket in the world – is used on a variety of missions, including deployments of the company's Starlink internet satellites from both Florida and California. With nearly 10,000 satellites in its growing orbital constellation, Starlink has become a lucrative part of Musk's business empire, serving millions of customers around the world.

SpaceX additionally benefits from billions of dollars in contracts from the Department of Defense by providing launch services for classified satellites and other payloads. The Falcon 9 rocket also helps launch NASA's human spaceflight missions to the International Space Station.

Where is SpaceX based in Texas? Starship launches from Starbase

Musk has often spoken about his vision of colonizing other worlds in our solar system to ensure humanity's survival in the event of an extinction-level even on Earth.

And it's SpaceX's gargantuan Starship that is the centerpiece of Musk's hope of sending humans further out into space than ever before.

SpaceX, which has been launching the 400-foot Starship on a series of test flights since 2023 from its Starbase headquarters in South Texas, is preparing to debut a new more powerful version of the rocket in March 2026.

1 / 222025 spaceflight in photos. See images of Blue Origin, SpaceX missionsThe SpaceX Starship spacecraft sits Oct. 12, 2025 atop the Super Heavy booster before sunrise as preparations continue for its 11th test flight from the company's complex in Starbase, Texas.Will Starship send humans to Mars?

In the years ahead, Starship is due to help NASA astronauts land on the moon under the U.S. space agency's Artemis program. That mission, Artemis 3, would occur in the years after NASA completes its upcoming Artemis 2 venture that as early as March 2026 could send four astronauts on a 10-day trip circling the moon.

Starship is also the vehicle Musk's SpaceX has long been developing to transport the first humans to Mars.

Musk has often reiterated his goal of launching a Starship rocket as early as 2026 on a pathfinding trip to Mars without a crew on board. That timeline by the end of the year would have coincided with an orbital alignment around the sun that would shorten the journey between Earth and Mars.

Under that plan, crewed trips would then have followed in the early 2030s – with the first humans on the red planet tasked with laying the groundwork for a self-sustaining civilization, Musk has previously claimed.

Musk says SpaceX now focused on moon

Now, though, Musk is saying SpaceX has shifted its focus to setting up a city on the moon.

The plan appears to resemble that of NASA's, which is planning to send astronauts to the moon to establish a lunar outpost that would make the agency's first crewed trip to Mars possible. It's a marked shift for Musk, who before has expressed skepticism of the U.S. space agency's moon-to-Mars approach in favor of a straight shot from Earth to the red planet.

That doesn't mean Musk's dream of colonizing Mars is dead – just that he believes establishing a lunar city will take much less time than setting up a Martian civilization. While Mars and Earth align once every 26 months to allow for interplanetary travel, trips to the moon could take place every 10 days, Musk claimed.

"This means we can iterate much faster to complete a moon city than a Mars city," Musk said on X. "The overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the moon is faster."

Eric Lagatta is the Space Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at [email protected]

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Elon Musk says SpaceX wants a human city on the moon before Mars

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