Elon Musk Has Secretly Been in Contact With Putin: Report

Elon Musk has a warmer relationship with Vladimir Putin than the public, and even some White House officials, are aware of, according to the Wall Street Journal, which cites "several current and former US, European, and Russian officials." The Journal's sources say Musk and the Russian leader have spoken regularly over the last two years, with discussions involving "personal topics, business, and geopolitical tensions."

• Taiwan. Two of the Journal's sources say Putin, as a favor to Xi Jinping, asked Musk not to activate the Starlink service over Taiwan. The Telegraph reports that the satellite internet service is still unavailable in Taiwan. "Service date is unknown at this time," the company's availability map states.

• Security concerns. The Journal reports that the alleged contact with Putin raises national security concerns due to Musk's "deep business ties with US military and intelligence agencies." Musk has a top-secret security clearance, though he said at a pro-Donald Trump event last week that most of the information he has access to is kept secret "because it's so boring."
• "Implicit threats" over Ukraine. Musk initially expressed strong support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion in early 2022, but he later restricted military use of the Starlink terminals he had provided. Musk has recently spoken out against US military aid to Kyiv. One of the Journal's sources says that in late 2022, Musk was speaking to "high-level Russians" amid pressure on his businesses and "implicit threats" against him.

• US government doesn't "love it." According to the Journal's sources, Musk's contact with Putin is a "closely held secret" in the administration. "They don't love it," but no security alerts have been raised, one source says.
• Denials. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov says the only contact Musk and Putin have had was a phone call about "space as well as current and future technologies." When Musk posted a poll about his "peace proposal" on Twitter weeks before he acquired the platform in October 2022, he said his only conversation with Putin had been a call 18 months earlier.

(More Elon Musk stories.)