Trump, Musk, & Mars Retrograde: hold your fire!

By Sue Kientz

Since December 7, 2024, planet Mars has appeared to move backwards (or retrograde) in the night skies, an illusion that happens when Earth, which moves faster than Mars, passes between the Sun and Mars, and Earth’s forward motion makes Mars look like it’s drifting the other way. Those who study astrology, however, know that the period where Mars seems stuck in reverse is a time one might wisely resist starting new projects and especially not make sudden, drastic, chancy moves. That’s because once Mars starts moving forward again, as it did on February 24-25, 2025, one might find that one’s projects and actions get backtracked. A good example is going on right now, as US President Donald Trump and his billionaire friend Elon Musk are finding out. They’ve spent weeks of Trump’s new term as president trying to drastically refashion major agencies of the US government to their liking, abruptly firing tens of thousands of government employees with no review and stopping the flow of congressionally allocated funds, resulting in lawsuits by unions for and groups of those employees and defunded parties.

And now that Mars has turned direct, those lawsuits are hitting the courtrooms, where judges are ruling for these seemingly hasty and illegal actions to stop. Trump appears confident he can appeal all the way to the US Supreme Court and enjoy some of that “presidential official acts immunity” benefit,(1) which will play out today, February 28, at noon in Washington, DC.(2) The court will hear arguments about whether Trump and Musk can continue to freeze billions of aid to Africa and other needy parts of the world where millions of the world’s poorest now starve for lack of food aid or risk dying because AIDS treatment has been cut off or virulent disease outbreaks like Ebola are no longer investigated and tracked.(3)

There’s more than a forward-moving Mars that signals that today’s Supreme Court hearing might disappoint the daring billionaire duo in their efforts to rob the poor to give to the rich (via a planned big tax cut, in the works by the Republican-led congress). As mentioned in an earlier ANS article,(4) in March, Saturn (now at 20 Pisces) is moving square (90-degrees) Donald Trump’s Sun (22 Gemini)(5), a position that typically denies easy success and rather raises hefty roadblocks. Elon Musk, too, faces inhibitors to his desires to benefit from that planned massive tax cut, since his Venus (19 Gemini) is also impacted by the square from slow, serious Saturn.(6) One personification of the ringed planet are judges in courts who insist that arguments raised before them stick to the facts and that their decisions be honored, all typical Saturnine behavior.

But Trump and Musk have more to worry about than Saturn who will eventually move out of Pisces during Trump’s second term. Across the starry way in Virgo, dwarf planet Orcus (now at 16 Virgo), a body much slower than Saturn, is also square Musk’s Venus and Trump’s Sun and will remain so for the next few years. Orcus is more strict than Saturn, prizing perfection and order, even to the point where people with Orcus aspects to Sun, Moon, Mercury, or Mars can be uncompromising, authoritarian, even a bit “OCD” (having obsessive-compulsive disorder).(7) One can be quite successful with Orcus traits, especially in the law profession, since rules and procedure are their bread and butter. The US Supreme Court is a good example, with Chief Justice John Roberts (Mercury trine Orcus; Mars square Orcus), Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito (both Mars square Orcus), Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson (both Sun sextile Orcus), Justice Sonia Sotomayor (Sun conjunct Orcus), Justice Neil Gorsuch  (Sun semi-square [45 degrees] Orcus), Justice Brett Kavanaugh (Mars semi-square Orcus), and Justice Amy Coney Barrett (Mercury opposite and Mars square Orcus) all having major contacts with Orcus.(8 and 9)

So while one would be unwise to stretch or break the law during Mars retrograde, even riskier is to land in court while under stressful squares from Saturn and Orcus.

Title Image credit: Trump head: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons; Musk head: João Paulo M. Mota, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons; additional artwork, icons, and text by the author

Notes and References

1. Howe, Amy, “Justices rule Trump has some immunity from prosecution,” SCOTUSblog, 1 July 2024,  https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/07/justices-rule-trump-has-some-immunity-from-prosecution/
2. “Supreme Court grants Trump request to pause USAID payments order,” Washington Post, 26 February 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/26/usaid-aid-supreme-court-payment-deadline/  
3. The president has the right to question and change how America’s taxpayer money is spent, but not after it is allocated by congress. At that point, his job is to faithfully execute the will of the people’s elected officials. See “Can Trump Actually Change Federal Funding Rules through Executive Orders?” https://www.kqed.org/news/12026245/can-trump-actually-change-federal-funding-rules-through-executive-orders
4. Kientz, Sue, “USAID dismantling halted by courts, but what’s next?” ANS, 7 February 2025, https://astrologynewsservice.com/articles/usaid-dismantling-halted-by-courts-but-whats-next/
5. Trump, Donald J., 14 June 1946, 10:54 a.m., Queens, NY (Birth Certificate), https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Trump,_Donald
6. Musk, Elon, 28 June 1971, 7:30 a.m., Pretoria, South Africa (Bio/autobiography), https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Musk,_Elon
7. Kientz, Sue. “Law and Orcus,” More Plutos, (Indianapolis: Dog Ear Publishing, 2015), pp. 109-127; also see “Orcus” at “Dwarf Planet Basics,” ANS, 4 November 2024, https://astrologynewsservice.com/articles/dwarf-planet-basics/
8. “Current Members,” SupremeCourt.gov,  https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx
9. For more details about the angles or relationships between planets, see Lynne Hyde’s “Astrology Basics,” ANS, 12 November 2024, https://astrologynewsservice.com/articles/astrology-basics/