Musk: “Time To Go Back To Moon At Scale”

A little more than a day after The Wall Street Journal reported that Elon Musk had rejiggered SpaceX’s near-term space roadmap, pivoting from a Mars-first to now prioritizing the Moon, Musk has now effectively confirmed the reporting.

“Time to go back to the Moon at scale,” Musk wrote on X early Sunday morning.

Time to go back to the Moon at scale https://t.co/rFjaenmQZd

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2026

X user Autism Capital hilariously responded to Musk with “Back”…

“Back” pic.twitter.com/h1W3ilKx6k

— Autism Capital (@AutismCapital) February 8, 2026

Late Friday evening, WSJ cited sources who said Musk had pushed back the planned late-year Mars mission, with SpaceX now targeting a Starship launch to the Moon in March 2027.

The space pivot comes after SpaceX acquired Musk’s AI company, xAI, last week, combining his rocket and satellite business with his artificial intelligence startup to accelerate plans for a fleet of low-Earth-orbit data centers.

The deal gives SpaceX a valuation of $1 trillion, and xAI a value of $250 billion. The combined company’s valuation of $1.25 trillion was announced to employees in a memo on Monday, with an IPO slated for later this year that could raise as much as $50 billion.

Even though Musk previously dismissed the moon as a “distraction” and argued for Mars first, it appears NASA may have nudged him, especially as Jeff Bezos’s rocket company, Blue Origin, has paused space tourism launches to focus on the moon.

Kardashev II civilization or bust.

Starship will get us to the Moon and Mars. pic.twitter.com/L9vhMOdDPK

— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) February 7, 2026

In a memo earlier last week, Musk told employees that the pivot will pave the way for the U.S. to construct a permanent base on the moon.

“The capabilities we unlock by making space-based data centers a reality will fund and enable self-growing bases on the moon, an entire civilization on Mars, and ultimately expansion to the universe,” he said.

Musk expanded on the idea of space-based data centers last week in an eye-opening conversation with tech podcaster and researcher Dwarkesh Patel, saying: “In 36 months, the cheapest place to put AI will be space.”

“Solar cells are already very cheap. They’re farcically cheap. I think solar cells in China are around 25-30 cents per watt. It’s absurdly cheap. Now put it in space, and it’s five times cheaper. In fact, it’s not five times  cheaper, it’s 10 times cheaper   because you don’t need any batteries. So the moment your cost of access to space becomes low, by far the cheapest and most scalable way to generate tokens is space,” Musk told Patel.

All this upcoming launch activity and the return to the moon will certainly drive a new space investing theme once the SpaceX IPO debuts. We have outlined multiple ways to profit from the space industry buildout, from low Earth orbit to lunar operations and beyond (see here, here, and here).