Comment by icegreentea2

Berger is clearly guarded and measured when he talks about Musk and SpaceX. Given the configuration of the space industry and the reality that Berger clearly needs access to make his living, I think Berger has provided generally even handed coverage of SpaceX, Musk and Musk's antics.

For example, his article on the SpaceX/xAI merger ends with a section called "Has SpaceX lost its way?", and framing that clearly indicates "this is what Musk says". https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/02/spacex-acquires-xai-plans...

In his article on SpaceX's "pivot from Mars to Moon", he describes Musk as "In the last 25 years, Musk has gone from an obscure, modestly wealthy person to the richest human being ever, from a political moderate to chief supporter of Donald Trump; from a respected entrepreneur to, well, to a lot of things to a lot of people: world’s greatest industrialist/supervillain/savant/grifter-fraudster.". https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/02/has-elon-musk-given-up...

You can read a AMA he did on the SpaceX subreddit last year for more of his thoughts: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/1fnq02q/eric_berger...

I think Berger got a lot of flack for not really commenting on Musk and DOGE during his articles last year, and I think it's fair to criticize him for that choice, but I don't think it's really a "Musk can do no wrong" position.

In other words, I think you really need to read between the lines for Berger re Musk.