Newsom Says ‘I’m With Elon’ in California Commission’s SpaceX Dispute

Gov. Gavin Newsom has sided with billionaire Elon Musk after a California agency rejected a plan to increase SpaceX rocket launches in Southern California.

“I’m with Elon,” Newsom, a Democrat, told Politico in an interview on Oct. 17. He made the comments after appearing at a campaign event for Vice President Kamala Harris in North Carolina, a battleground state in the 2024 presidential election.

“I didn’t like that,” said Newsom of the way the California Coastal Commission, which oversees the use of land and water within the state’s more than 1,000 miles of coastline, handled the proposal.

After the commission’s rejection on Oct. 10, Musk called it “incredibly inappropriate” and pledged SpaceX would file a lawsuit over the decision. The company followed through and sued the commission in a Los Angeles federal court on Oct. 15.

While the rockets are mainly used to deliver the company’s Starlink satellites, which provide commercial satellite internet and telecommunications, they’re also used for military missions, and officials consider the missions to be critical to national defense.

The U.S. Air Force had initially made the request to the commission, asking that it approve the plan to increase SpaceX launches from 36 to 50 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, located in Santa Barbara County. Officials argued the launches should be considered “federal agency activity.”