‘Coming back’: Elon Musk shares video of Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore being grateful to Donald Trump, his advisor

Elon Musk, the Space X founder and Tesla chief, shared an old video on Monday, March 17, showing stranded NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore expressing gratitude to US President Donald Trump and his advisor Elon Musk.

Taking to social media platform X, Musk posted the video and the caption to the clip states, “Stranded NASA astronauts thank Elon Musk and Trump.” In the 25-second video clip posted by Elon Musk, Sunit Williams can be heard saying, “We are coming back before long so don't make those plans without me. We'll be back before too long.”

Expressing his vote of thanks, Butch Wilmore said, "I tell you, well all of us have utmost respect for Mr Musk and obviously respect and admiration for President of United States Donald Trump. We appreciate them, we appreciate all what they do for us, human spaceflight for our nation and we're thankful for positions they are in."

The post has gone viral amassing 4.8 million views, 1.14 lakh likes and several comments. Earlier, in an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity Donald Trump and Elon Musk claimed that the NASA astronauts were "abandoned" at International Space Station (ISS) for "political reasons." The duo alleged that the previous Biden administration was "going to leave them in space."

During the interview, the tech billionaire mentioned that Space X accelerated the process to bring back the astronauts at US President's request “which was postponed, kind of, to a ridiculous degree.” Exuding confidence in Space X's mission to bring back Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, Elon Musk had said, "Well, we don't want to be complacent, but we have brought astronauts back from the space station many times before, and always with success."

After spending nearly nine months in space, the two astronauts will finally be returning to Earth. Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore embarked on a 10-day mission to the ISS on June 5 onboard the Boeing Starliner. The replacement crew will take charge of ISS while Williams and Butch Wilmore will depart on March 19 alongside NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov, NASA stated.