For years, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has touted his ambitions to send people to Mars as a way to preserve the human race. On Friday, he’ll give an update on his plans.
Musk announced the SpaceX Mars 2026 presentation in an X post on Thursday.
The announcement will mark Musk’s return to his businesses after nearly 130 days enacting dramatic government cuts with his Department of Government Efficiency. He said this week that he was stepping back from his government duties after being Donald Trump’s right-hand man for the first four months of his presidency.
Will be posted tomorrow
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 29, 2025
The news comes days after Musk addressed SpaceX employees about “making life multiplanetary.” The company just completed its ninth Starship flight mission on Tuesday. SpaceX employees reached space but then lost control of the vessel.
Musk has frequently discussed his intentions to send an unmanned spacecraft to Mars by the end of 2026 and have humans “likely” land on the planet by 2031.
His interest in the project reportedly stems from the long-term survival of humans. In at least six billion years, our solar system’s expanding sun is set to destroy Earth, according to NASA.
In a Fox News interview earlier this month, Musk said: “That’s one of the benefits of Mars, is life insurance for life collectively.”
He added: "We do at some point need to be a multi-planet civilization, because Earth will be incinerated."
Musk envisions creating a self-sustaining colony on Mars. Scientists believe it could be possible for humans to live on Mars in the future.
The climate is currently harsh. Icy temperatures and a lack of water are present throughout the planet. To combat this, Musk has suggested using Tesla-developed solar panels to provide electricity and heat homes.
The CEO aims to have one million people living on Mars by the 2040s. The planet is supposedly ideal because it is Earth’s closest neighbor, has similar levels of sunlight and length of days.
In the meantime, he wants to make it possible for people to travel to Mars recreationally.
Still, Musk has missed his own deadlines for planetary exploration. In 2016, he said he wanted to send humans to Mars by 2024. A year later, he said he would offer private citizens trips to the moon. Neither of the plans materialized.
