Elon Musk’s SpaceX just overhauled its to-do list.
In an X post on Sunday, the CEO said that the company is shifting its focus from Mars to creating a “self-growing city” on the moon.
“It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the Moon every 10 days (2 day trip time),” Musk wrote. “This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city.”
The announcement is a big departure from Musk’s previous comments about reaching the red planet this year.
In 2020, the SpaceX CEO said he was confident that the company would land humans on Mars by 2026.
“If we get lucky, maybe four years,” Musk said at an awards show in 2020. “We want to send an uncrewed vehicle there in two years.”
The space company has historically delayed ambitious projects because of their complexity and regulatory challenges. Last week, the company delayed the Artemis 2 moon mission, the first human moon mission in more than 50 years.
Mars is still part of the plan
In Sunday’s post, Musk added that SpaceX would continue building a Mars city, starting in five to seven years.
“But the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster,” he wrote.
Last week, Musk announced that SpaceX would acquire xAI, his AI company behind the chatbot Grok. XAI purchased the social media platform X in March 2025.
The CEO wrote that SpaceX’s xAI acquisition would create “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free speech platform.”
In the memo, Musk shared plans to have “self-growing bases” and factories on the moon. He also mentioned having “an entire civilization on Mars.”
