Elon Musk Wants To Colonize The Moon And He Has A Plan To Do It SOON

CEO of SpaceX, Elon Musk, is putting his plans to colonize Mars on the back burner and is instead focusing on a new celestial body.

In a post on X over the weekend, Elon Musk revealed that SpaceX will shift its focus from colonizing Mars in the near future to colonizing the moon.

Musk did note that he is not abandoning his goal of colonizing Mars, but shared that securing the future of civilization will be more feasible by starting with colonizing the moon first.

Reuters had more details to add on Musk’s big ambitions for SpaceX:

Elon Musk said on Sunday that SpaceX has shifted its focus to building a “self‑growing city” on the moon, which could be achieved in less than 10 years.

SpaceX still intends to start on Musk’s long-held ambition of a city on Mars within five to seven years, he wrote on his X social media platform, “but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster”.

Musk’s comments echo a Wall Street Journal report on Friday, which said SpaceX has told investors it would prioritize going to the moon and attempt a trip to Mars at a later time, targeting March 2027 for an uncrewed lunar landing.

This marks a shift from Musk’s long-standing focus on Mars as SpaceX’s primary destination. As recently as last year, he said the company aimed to launch an uncrewed Mars mission by the end of 2026.

“No, we’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction,” he said in January last year in response to a post on X.

Musk has a long record of setting ambitious timelines for projects such as electric vehicles and self-driving technology that have repeatedly failed to materialize on schedule.

Here are Elon Musk’s plans below:

For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years.

The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2026

Full text:

For those unaware, SpaceX has already shifted focus to building a self-growing city on the Moon, as we can potentially achieve that in less than 10 years, whereas Mars would take 20+ years.

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The mission of SpaceX remains the same: extend consciousness and life as we know it to the stars.

It is only possible to travel to Mars when the planets align every 26 months (six month trip time), whereas we can launch to the Moon every 10 days (2 day trip time). This means we can iterate much faster to complete a Moon city than a Mars city.

That said, SpaceX will also strive to build a Mars city and begin doing so in about 5 to 7 years, but the overriding priority is securing the future of civilization and the Moon is faster.

Moon first

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 8, 2026

It appears Musk will use the moon for a test run in his ultimate goal of making Mars a place where humans can one day inhabit.

NBC News reported that NASA’s recent attempt to send astronauts to the moon was delayed due to a leakage before take-off:

NASA said on Tuesday that it was delaying its mission to send four astronauts on a journey around the moon, after issues arose during a critical test of its rocket.

Shortly after 2 a.m. ET on Tuesday, NASA announced that it would forgo February’s launch window (which lasted until Feb. 11) for the Artemis II mission around the moon to allow teams to review data and conduct another wet dress rehearsal. The agency said it will aim for March “as the earliest possible launch opportunity.”

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NASA has said launch opportunities are available from March 6 through March 9 and on March 11, with additional dates in April, if needed.

“To me, the big takeaway was we got a chance for the rocket to talk to us, and it did just that,” John Honeycutt, the Artemis II mission management team chair, said Tuesday afternoon in a news briefing discussing the wet dress rehearsal.

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