Trump and Musk meet in Texas for SpaceX Starship launch as booster splashes down in Gulf of Mexico

US president-elect named world's richest man as one of the leaders of a new Department of Government Efficiency

SpaceX owner Elon Musk welcomed US president-elect Donald Trump to Starbase in Texas for the sixth launch of SpaceX's Starship rocket.

Mr Trump listened intently as the world’s richest man explained how the test would work and demonstrated with a model. And then he squinted into the bright sky to watch lift-off.

Mr Musk donated and raised millions of dollars for Mr Trump during his presidential campaign against Democrat Kamala Harris. The president-elect has named Mr Musk as one of the heads of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, which will be charged with cutting government waste.

Elon Musk talks with president-elect Donald Trump before the launch of the rocket. AP

Unlike last month’s successful Starship launch, the booster was directed to a splash down in the Gulf of Mexico. The catch was called off four minutes into the test flight from Texas for unspecified reasons, and the booster hit the water three minutes later.

Not all of the criteria for a booster catch were met and so the flight director did not command the booster to return to the launch site, said SpaceX spokesman Dan Huot. He did not specify what went wrong.

At the same time, the empty spacecraft launched from Texas on top of the Starship soared across the Gulf of Mexico on a near loop around the world similar to October’s test flight. Skimming space, the shiny retro-looking craft hit the Indian Ocean for a controlled but destructive end to the hour-long demonstration.

It was the latest test for the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket that SpaceX and Nasa hope to use to get astronauts back on the Moon and eventually Mars.