SpaceX launch: Why Starship’s latest attempt has such significance for Elon Musk

420 is seemingly one of Mr Musk’s favourite numbers, and it has appeared in otherwise serious business dealings

SpaceX Starship Test Flight (Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is about to launch the biggest rocket ever made in, a test that could decide the future of space travel.

But he may be just as excited by the date that launch will be happening: April 20, or 4/20.

The date – known as “weed day”, and a common joke on the internet – is one of Mr Musk’s favoured jokes. The origins of the day are a little unclear, but it has gone on to be both a favoured day among those who like cannabis and also a joke on the internet.

The delight in the number and the date have even become a little separated from that association with cannabis, and it has become something of its own joke on the internet. Like the number 69 – known sometimes as the “sex number” – it is often simply used as a funny number to try and include in posts or elsewhere.

Mr Musk has made reference to the number regularly. He once claimed that he was taking Tesla private at $420 a share – though later successfully argued that the number was a coincidence – and also included the number in his takeover of Twitter, which was priced at $54.20 per share.

In February, Mr Musk just tweeted the number on its own, in what appeared to be and was largely interpreted as a reference to an expected date for the Starship launch.

After it was rescheduled from Monday because of a problem with a pressure valve, Mr Musk had joked on Twitter that the date of the Starship launch was “perhaps inevitable”. He may have had something to do with that; even before Monday’s postponement, many had predicted that he would have been hoping for a launch on the 20th.

On Wednesday, however, Mr Musk seemed to indicate that he might not get his wish after all.

“The team is working around the clock on many issues,” he tweeted. “Maybe 4/20, maybe not.”

This year, 4/20 already had significance for Mr Musk. It is the date he has chosen to remove “legacy” blue ticks from verified users – after postponing it from the first of the month, April Fools’ Day.