Then along comes Musk, with one of the world's loudest microphones, shouting that NASA's astronauts are stranded and that President Trump wants them saved. It's a bombshell thing for the founder of SpaceX, who has become a close adviser to Trump, to say publicly.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday night he had asked Elon Musk's SpaceX to return two NASA astronauts from the International Space Station, who were already scheduled to fly back on a SpaceX capsule in March.