Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) expressed uncommon support for Elon Musk after the California Coastal Commission blocked the latter’s efforts to increase SpaceX launches at the state’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.
“I’m with Elon. I didn’t like that. Look, I’m not helping the legal case. You just can’t bring up that explicit level of politics,” Newsom said during an interview Thursday evening, later adding he wished “his friends” on the state commission would exercise more impartiality by “calling balls and strikes.”
Newsom’s statement came after Musk mounted a lawsuit against the state regulator, alleging “naked political discrimination” fueled the commission’s move to pour cold water on his SpaceX plans.
The California Coastal Commission voted on Tuesday to reject the Department of Defense and Musk’s proposal to increase the number of rockets launched off California’s coastline. The Space Force, which partners with SpaceX to transport some NASA astronauts, had previously recommended that Musk’s company be given permission to launch up to 50 rockets a year from Santa Barbara County’s Vandenberg Air Force Base.
The California Coastal Commission’s 6-4 vote rejecting the proposal cited Musk’s politics as its basis to stop SpaceX from increasing rocket launches.
“Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet,” one of the agency’s commissioners, Gretchen Newsom (no relation to Gavin Newsom) claimed.
Though the Democratic governor has publicly sparred with Musk in recent years, even prominently leading the Big Tech titan to pull his SpaceX and X headquarters out of California, Newsom expressed concerns that the California agency had displayed political bias and urged it to exercise impartiality.
“These are friends of mine that said that. These are good commissioners. But you got to call balls and strikes. And trust me, I’m not big on the Elon Musk bandwagon right now. So that’s me calling balls and strikes,” he said.
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Newsom and Musk are still at opposite ends of the political spectrum. The California governor targeted Musk during his interview on Thursday, claiming his move to support former President Donald Trump calls his “character” into question.
The SpaceX founder has become one of Trump’s most powerful supporters in recent months, while Newsom has campaigned for Vice President Kamala Harris, his one-time Californian colleague.