Washington. In early February, billionaire Elon Musk announced a shift in short-term focus from Mars to the Moon – a marked departure from the previous year. At the time, he argued that colonising the red planet would not require a stopover on the Moon, describing Earth’s natural satellite as a ‘distraction’.
According to the Wall Street Journal, however, he revised the company’s objectives in an effort to secure additional investment by the summer and to take the business public through an initial public offering (IPO) – despite the estimated $1.25 trillion valuation of the planned SpaceX–xAI mega-merger.
‘The capabilities we unlock by implementing space data centres will fund and enable self-sustaining bases on the Moon, an entire civilization on Mars, and ultimately expansion into space,’ he told investors.
The proposed ‘self-sustaining’ lunar city is therefore the latest addition to Musk’s ambition to elevate human civilisation into the realm of science fiction. The projected timetable envisages construction within ten years – compared with roughly twenty years for the first settlement on Mars.
The Kardashev scale and the energy race
‘Factories on the Moon can use lunar resources to manufacture satellites and send them further into space,’ he said. ‘By using electromagnetic propulsion and lunar manufacturing, it is possible to send 500 to 1,000 terawatts of computing power per year into deep space, which will significantly advance us on the Kardashev scale and utilize a significant percentage of the Sun’s energy,’ he continued, referring to the scale of civilisations devised by the Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev.
In 1964, Kardashev proposed ranking hypothetical spacefaring societies according to how efficiently they harness energy. On his scale, humanity does not yet reach even the first level, as it is incapable of capturing the full energy output of the Sun as its ‘parent star’.
Subsequent theorists have refined the model several times. The higher stages envisage a civilisation capable of harvesting the energy of an entire galaxy – or even exercising control over the fabric of space-time itself.
For the time being, energy producers remain firmly grounded, working within existing capacities. Yet they face a surge in demand that is expected to grow exponentially. AI data centres alone are projected to increase electricity consumption by 165 per cent by 2030, prompting the United States to reactivate ageing nuclear power plants.
SpaceX plans launches to the Moon every ten days with a view to long-term settlement. Musk intends to extract water from lunar ice to supply astronauts living and working in habitable modules.
He has acknowledged that producing rocket fuel from lunar resources is not yet technically feasible. However, ‘once we get there and the city is buzzing’, methane could be synthesised from the carbon and hydrogen available on the surface.
Martian ambitions and America’s defence industry
Although Musk openly longs to ‘conquer’ Mars, his business decisions also suggest a bid for greater influence at home. The US Department of Defense has launched a programme to develop ‘autonomous drone swarms’, reportedly drawing lessons from the war in Ukraine.
According to Bloomberg, SpaceX and its new division, xAI, have joined the initiative. Under the terms of a confidential competition held in January, the drones are to be voice-controlled in order to simplify their deployment on the battlefield.
The unmanned systems are expected to master so-called swarming technology, enabling them to coordinate autonomously with one another. At present, the technology is not sufficiently advanced to allow multiple drones to be controlled reliably through a single operating programme.
Participants are required to design software that translates spoken commands into ‘digital speech’, effectively allowing voice operation in combat conditions.
Musk has long cooperated with the Pentagon through SpaceX, which supplies the Starshield defence satellite system. He also works closely with NASA, leasing Starship rockets to the agency. However, the development of AI-based drone operating systems marks what Bloomberg described as a ‘new and potentially controversial departure’ from his earlier public positions.
The news agency noted that the billionaire ‘is among those who have spoken out against the production of “new tools for killing people” in the past.’ The contract is valued at $100 million, and the Pentagon is expected to announce the outcome of the competition later this year. Alongside Musk, Sam Altman and his company OpenAI – which Musk co-founded – are also participating.
The South African-born entrepreneur is simultaneously expanding recruitment of programmers and engineers holding ‘secret’ and ‘top secret’ security clearances, as he seeks to broaden military, space and technology contracts. He previously secured a $200 million agreement with the Department of Defense to deploy the Grok chatbot on government servers.
Despite stepping back from President Donald Trump’s administration, he continues to comment on US politics. Ahead of the 2024 election campaign, he enjoyed a surge in popularity, much of which he later lost after backing measures to simplify H-1B work visas for Indian IT specialists.
He now appears to be positioning himself for a renewed political role. On his social media platform X, owned by xAI, he recently responded to an old recording of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
In the clip, the Italian-born jurist discussed the conditions required to ‘become Americans.’ ‘Diversity alone is not what makes a nation great,’ said Scalia, widely regarded as a leading conservative voice on the court.
‘For a country to survive, it must have a common culture. No one will die defending a “multicultural economic zone”! American culture, with its English, Scottish, and Irish origins, is great and worth fighting for,’ Musk wrote.