Trump orders easing of business spaceflight laws, in boon to Musk’s SpaceX


U.S. President Donald Trump speaks throughout an occasion on the Kennedy Heart on August 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump introduced the primary nominees of the annual Kennedy Heart Honors since taking management of the middle’s board earlier this yr.

Kevin Dietsch | Getty Pictures

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an government order on Wednesday to streamline federal regulation governing business rocket launches, a transfer that might profit Elon Musk’s SpaceX and different non-public area ventures.

Trump’s order, amongst different issues, directs the U.S. transportation secretary to eradicate or expedite environmental critiques for launch licenses administered by the Federal Aviation Administration, the White Home stated in an announcement.

The declaration additionally calls on the secretary to dispose of “outdated, redundant or overly restrictive guidelines for launch and reentry automobiles.”

“Inefficient allowing processes discourage funding and innovation, limiting the power of U.S. firms to steer in world area markets,” the manager order states.

It added: “Overly advanced environmental and different licensing and allowing laws decelerate business area launches and infrastructure improvement, and profit entrenched incumbents (who can afford to bear the expense of regulatory compliance) over new market entrants (who can’t).”

Though Musk and Trump have remained embroiled in a high-profile feud for months, the billionaire entrepreneur’s SpaceX rocket and satellite tv for pc enterprise probably stands to be the one largest instant beneficiary of Trump’s order on Wednesday.

SpaceX, though not talked about by identify within the government order, simply leads all different U.S. area trade entities, together with NASA, within the sheer variety of launches it routinely conducts.

Musk has complained that environmental influence critiques and post-flight mishap investigations have repeatedly slowed down testing of SpaceX’s formidable new Starship rocket automobile, underneath improvement on the firm’s South Texas launch facility.