Elon Musk Slams Joe Biden For Ignoring The Success Of The Inspiration4 Mission

Inspiration4 mission, received less attention from Joe Biden. (photo; twitter)

JAKARTA - Elon Musk criticized President Joe Biden, after the commander-in-chief in the US refused to acknowledge SpaceX's success from its first civilian mission, in which four amateur astronauts orbited Earth for three days.

One of Musk's 60 million Twitter followers pointed out that the White House and Biden have yet to comment on the mission, which made a successful return to Earth Saturday night.

"The president of the United States refuses to even acknowledge the 4 newest American astronauts who helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for St. Jude," wrote user @rhensing. "What's your theory about why that is?"

"He's still sleeping," Musk replied on Sunday afternoon.

The President of the United States has refused to even acknowledge the 4 newest American astronauts who helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for St. Jude.What's your theory on why that is?

— electric Cyberfarmer (@rhensing) September 19, 2021

As of Monday morning, the White House had not commented on the mission dubbed "Inspiration4", which marked the first time that an entire civilian crew had managed to reach Earth orbit.

The crew - Jared Isaacman, Hayley Arceneaux, Chris Sembroski and Dr. Sian Proctor - spends three days circling the planet at an altitude of more than 335 miles, about 75 miles higher than the International Space Station and parallel to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Isaacman, 38, an accomplished jet pilot, led the mission after having paid $200 million for the privilege.

The billionaire donated two seats in the mission. Others went to Sembroski, who won a raffle that raised $113 million from donations to the St. Children's Research Hospital. Jude.

The flight helped raise more than 200 million dollars for St. Jude's after a $50 million donation from Musk himself.

The Crew Dragon capsule carrying a quintet of astronauts landed in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida Saturday night, shortly after 7 p.m. ET (9:00 a.m. EST).

"On behalf of Space X, welcome to planet Earth," the dispatcher told the crew during a live broadcast of the event.

“Your mission has shown the world that outer space is for all of us, and that ordinary people can make an extraordinary impact on the world around them.”

Top officials from The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, including NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, congratulated those involved in the mission.

SpaceX's aerospace industry competitors, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, also congratulated the company on the mission.

This isn't the first time Musk has fallen out with the Biden administration. Last month, Musk said that no one from Tesla was invited to the White House to attend a summit on the future of electric cars even as rivals Ford, GM and Stellantis attended.

More recently, Musk criticized the Biden administration's proposal that it would allocate an additional $4,500 in incentives to new electric car buyers of certain products — but only if it was made in the U.S. by unionized workers. Tesla's factories are not unionized and Musk has opposed union efforts in the past.