The talks between Musk and Putin, which have been going on since the end of 2022, should have been about both personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions, writes The Wall Street Journal. That the billionaire and the Russian president have spoken several times is something that several former and current American, Russian and European officials state to the newspaper.
Elon Musk is the founder of SpaceX, which operates the Starlink service. The company is NASA and the Pentagon’s primary rocket launcher. This means that Musk has some access to classified information, and has strong ties to the US military.
According to two of the sources, Putin allegedly asked Musk not to activate his Starlink satellite Internet service over Taiwan, which was a favor to China’s leader Xi Jinping.
Kremlin: Has only happened once
Elon Musk has not commented on the data.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the only communication the Kremlin has had with Musk was over a phone call in which he and Putin discussed “space as well as current and future technologies.”
Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, does not confirm that there have been any regular talks with Musk, but says that a conversation took place once in a while over the phone. Then Musk and Putin are said to have discussed “space and current and future technology”.
Elon Musk said in October 2022 that he had a conversation with Putin once in April 2021, a conversation that was supposed to be about space.
“They don’t love it”
According to the sources, the conversations between the Russian president and the billionaire are a well-kept secret in the US government. Several people the newspaper has spoken to did not know about the contact.
A person the newspaper spoke to believes that a dilemma arises because one relies on Musk’s space rockets. At the same time, there are no alarms about security breaches.
– They don’t love it, says the person about where the government thinks about the contacts between Musk and Putin.