In October 2022, Elon Musk publicly admitted that he had spoken to Putin, although only once—around April 2021.
However, a new report by The Wall Street Journal claims that SpaceX, Tesla, and X chief executive officer has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022 and into this year.
The report was based on several current and former U.S., European, and Russian officials and intelligence sources. The discussions allegedly touched on personal topics, business, and geopolitical tensions.
Elon Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment. At the same time, the Kremlin only admitted one phone call between Musk and Putin—on the topic of space and technologies—and denied any regular communication between the two.
The report raises questions about national security due to Musk’s close business ties with the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. The founder of SpaceX, which won a $1.8 billion classified contract in 2021 for the U.S. government, has a security clearance that allows him access to certain classified information.
A Pentagon spokesman refused to comment on any individual’s security clearance, review, or status.
The question of national security is even more concerning given WSJ’s revelation that Putin, at one point, asked Elon Musk to avoid activating SpaceX’s Starlink service over Taiwan, reportedly as a favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The request came late last year, The Wall Street Journal reports citing a former Russian intelligence officer briefed on the situation. Starlink is currently still unavailable in Taiwan. There is no information on when this might change.
Elon Musk commented on the report, saying on X: “Everyone knows that NYT is a left-wing propaganda machine. Less obvious, is that the WSJ is controlled by the (left-wing) journalists union, not Rupert Murdoch! Same is true of almost all legacy news organizations.” In his tweets, he didn’t question any specific information contained in the report.