Steve Nesius/Reuters
Bill Nelson said he asked SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell if Twitter would distract from SpaceX.
The NASA administrator said Shotwell reassured him there was “nothing to worry about.”
Since buying Twitter in October, Elon Musk has spent much of his time at the company’s headquarters.
Even NASA has expressed concern over Elon Musk’s chaotic Twitter takeover.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson said on Sunday that he had asked SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell whether Musk’s Twitter acquisition would impact SpaceX or the commitments the company has made to NASA.
“Tell me that the distraction that Elon might have on Twitter is not going to affect SpaceX,” Nelson said he asked Shotwell earlier in December, per NBC.
Nelson said that the SpaceX president assured him he has “nothing to worry about,” NBC reported.
“I hugged her with a smile on my face, because I know she is running that thing,” Nelson said, per NBC. “She’s running SpaceX.”
A spokesperson for SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication.
SpaceX is working with NASA on its Artemis program, which aims to put boots back on the moon by the end of 2025. The agency has given Musk’s company billions of dollars in funding.
The NASA administrator is not the first to express concern in Musk’s preoccupation with Twitter. Last week, Bloomberg reported that Tesla investors were concerned that the billionaire had “abandoned” the electric-car maker in favor of the social media company.
Over the past few months, Musk has spent much of his time at Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco — even sleeping in the office. The Tesla CEO has also reportedly brought in engineers from his other companies to help out with Twitter.
“I continue to oversee both Tesla & SpaceX, but the teams there are so good that often little is needed from me,” Musk tweeted on Thursday.
Musk’s current focus on Twitter can be seen via his tweets, which have been heavily focused on product updates, the release of the so-called “Twitter files,” and calls to fight “the woke mind virus.”
Last month, the billionaire said he’s looking for someone else to run Twitter and plans to eventually reduce his time at the company. S
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