Barack Obama took a shot at the likes of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos by saying that Earth would be more liveable than the red planet "even after a nuclear war."
Speaking on Wednesday, the former US president said that Silicon Valley "tycoons, many of whom are building spaceships," should be focusing on saving Earth rather than investing in flying humans off to space.
"When I hear some of the people talk about the plan to colonize Mars because the Earth environment may become so degraded that it becomes unliveable, I look at them like, what are you talking about?" said Obama at the opening of the 2024 POwR.Earth Summit in Paris per Barron's.
- Barack Obama hit out at Silicon Valley tycoons' aspirations to colonize Mars.
- Earth would be more liveable than Mars "even after a nuclear war" and climate change, he said.
- It comes as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos test mega-rockets that could take humans to the red planet
"Even after a nuclear war, Earth would be more liveable than Mars, even if we didn't do anything about CC [climate change] it would still have oxygen — as far as we can tell, Mars does not," he said.
The billionaire has previously said he wants to send millions of humans to Mars by 2050 and that it was "highly likely" humans would land on the red planet within the next decade.
Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin plans to test its own mega-rocket, New Glenn, for the first time in August this year.
The rocket could compete with Starship for NASA's plans to return to the moon ahead of heading to Mars.
The former Amazon CEO said last year he saw more potential in putting humans on gargantuan space stations rather than sending them to another planet.
Obama emphasized that the development of space exploration should continue for the sake of knowledge and discovery.
But when it comes to relocating humans to outer space, "I would rather us invest in taking care of this planet here," said Obama.
"We were designed for this place, and it would be good if we kept this place in a way that's liveable," he said.
