Elon Musk’s SpaceX has sued a California commission in federal court, accusing it of political bias in its decision to prevent the space company from increasing the number of rockets it launches from a US air base in the state. The commission cited Musk’s penchant for spreading misinformation on his Twitter/X social network in a meeting where commissioners rejected the company’s proposal.
SpaceX sued the California coastal commission on Tuesday in Los Angeles, seeking an order that would prohibit the agency from regulating the company’s Falcon 9 rocket launch program at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara.
The lawsuit claimed that the commission, which oversees land and water use within the state’s more than 1,000 miles of coastline, unfairly asserted regulatory powers over the company’s launches based on a disapproval of Musk’s political views and not on environmental considerations.
Musk’s lawsuit called any consideration of his public statements inadequate, violating speech rights protected by the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit also accused the commission of “unconstitutional overreach,” intruding on national security and other federal interests, and said launches at the base had had “no significant effects on coastal resources.”
“Rarely has a government agency made it so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the political opinions and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO,” the lawsuit reads.
Coastal Commissioner Gretchen Newsom had said at an Oct. 10 meeting: “Elon Musk is jumping around the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking Fema while stating his desire to help hurricane victims with free Internet access. “Starlink.” The commissioners also argued that commercial space launches were not a federal government activity, so the company must submit to the commission’s coastal development permitting authority. They voted 6-4 to reject the request to conduct up to 50 launches from the space force base.
The commission declined to comment Wednesday. SpaceX and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Musk, whose politics have taken a sharp turn to the right, has endorsed Donald Trump and become a mega-donor, campaigning for the Republican presidential candidate and saying he would accept a role in Trump’s administration if he wins. He hopes to gut many government departments.
California, the home state of Trump’s Democratic rival Kamala Harris, has become a solidly Democratic state in recent decades, with the party holding state offices and endorsing Democratic candidates in national elections.
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SpaceX, which contracts with the U.S. government to deploy satellites and other payloads, has launched Falcon 9 rockets from California’s Central Air Base since 2013. The company launched 28 Falcon 9 rockets last year. The Air Force had proposed increasing the number of annual SpaceX launches from 36 to 50. The Air Force said the proposal met the California coastal agency’s requirements, including sonic boom minimization measures and biological monitoring.