Earlier this week, the heroic return of NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, who had been marooned on the International Space Station since June 2024, was celebrated as they landed safely on Earth, thanks to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. This impressive space rescue, however, highlights a significant oversight by the Biden Administration.
Stranded for nine months instead of their planned 8-day mission, the astronauts have not received any overtime pay, an issue President Trump addressed with his usual resolve on Friday.
According to Newsweek:
Despite being stuck in space for 278 days longer than originally expected, Wilmore and Williams did not receive overtime pay, a NASA spokesperson told Newsweek.
Standard NASA procedures dictate that astronauts receive a regular 40-hour workweek salary while aboard the ISS, excluding any overtime or holiday pay. However, they do receive an incidental pay of $5 per day, totaling $1,430 for the 286 days Wilmore and Williams spent in space.
During his remarks to the press, President Trump was queried about this overtime oversight for our brave astronauts. A reporter asked:
The two astronauts that you just helped save from space, they didn’t get any overtime pay…@POTUS: “If I have to, I’ll pay it out of my own pocket… and I want to thank @elonmusk by the way because think if we don’t have him.”
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47)
March 21, 2025
President Trump assured, “Well, nobody’s ever mentioned this to me. If I have to, I’ll pay it out of my own pocket. Ok? I’ll get it for them.”
Additionally, President Trump expressed gratitude to Elon Musk for his essential role in the rescue mission, remarking on the potential dangers of prolonged space habitation.
Musk, in a conversation with Sean Hannity, confirmed that SpaceX had offered to return the stranded astronauts before the extended ordeal but was politically rebuffed by the Biden administration.
Musk stated, “We definitely offered to return the astronauts earlier, there’s no question about that. The astronauts were only supposed to be there for eight days, and they’ve been there for ten months. So obviously, that doesn’t make sense. SpaceX could have brought the astronauts back after a few months at most, and we made that offer to the Biden administration. It was rejected for political reasons, and that’s just a fact.”
