Newsom sides with Elon Musk in SpaceX's California lawsuit

California's Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday night sided with Elon Musk, after a California agency rejected a Defense Department request to increase the amount of SpaceX launches at Vandenberg Space Force Base. 

Musk sued the California Coastal Commission (CCC) on Tuesday after it cited his political activities as a reason to reject the request. Musk founded SpaceX in 2002, and has been a vocal supporter of former President Donald Trump since the assassination attempt against him this July.

Newsom admitted that he largely agreed with the lawsuit, which alleges that the commission “engaged in naked political discrimination" by bringing politics into the decision, and said the rejection should have been confined to the merits of the request instead of politics.

“I’m with Elon. ... I didn't like that," Newsom told Politico in North Carolina on Thursday. "Look I'm not helping the legal case, [but] you can’t bring up that explicit level of politics ... These are friends of mine that said that." 

"These are good commissioners. But you got to call balls and strikes. And trust me, I’m not big on the Elon Musk bandwagon right now. So that’s me calling balls and strikes,” he explained.

Newsom's agreement is a rarity for the two. The governor has sparred with Musk over multiple orders in California recently, including a new bill that protects LGBT students in school.

The CCC said in its rejection that it was concerned Trump would use SpaceX for military operations if elected back to the White House, which would make it more difficult to enforce environmental requirements. But debate on the issue also included criticism of Musk's social media posts and views on transgender people.

“Elon Musk is hopping about the country, spewing and tweeting political falsehoods and attacking FEMA while claiming his desire to help the hurricane victims with free Starlink access to the internet,” Commissioner Gretchen Newsom said at a meeting last week. 

Gretchen Newsom is not related to the governor.

“I really appreciate the work of the Space Force,” Commission Chair Caryl Hart said at the meeting. “But here we’re dealing with a company, the head of which has aggressively injected himself into the presidential race and he’s managed a company in a way that was just described by Commissioner Newsom that I find to be very disturbing.”

Misty Severi is an evening news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.