Thomas Black, Columnist

SpaceX’s Failed Test Proves Musk Needs to Refocus

The negative impact of the billionaire’s absence and foray into politics is even clearer at his space startup than it is at Tesla.

May 28, 2025 at 3:40 PM UTC

By Thomas Black

Thomas Black is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist writing about the industrial and transportation sectors. He was previously a Bloomberg News reporter covering logistics, manufacturing and private aviation.

Destination: disappointment.
Photographer: Sergio Flores/AFP/Getty Images

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Another Starship glitch is not a good look for SpaceX, the startup founded by Elon Musk.

This is the third consecutive Starship launch that ended with disappointment and several uncompleted tests. The mantra of SpaceX’s tests have been to fail, learn and iterate. This strategy hasn’t worked as well without full attention from Musk, who converted the idea of building a reusable rocket into reality.