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Posted on Oct 25, 2024 / Politics / USA

The head of SpaceX, Tesla and X, Elon Musk, has been regularly communicating with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022, The Wall Street Journal writes, citing several current and former officials from the United States, Europe and Russia.

During their conversations, Musk and Putin touch personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions.

The Wall Street Journal notes that information about Musk's contacts with the Kremlin is apparently a "closely guarded secret"; not everyone in the US government knows about it. One of the WSJ's sources said that the US authorities "don't like" Musk's contacts with Putin, but the White House has not issued any warnings to the businessman due to possible violations.

Elon Musk's contacts with the Russian president, the publication notes, worry some employees of the current US administration, since the United States views Putin as one of its main opponents. At the same time, Musk has access to certain classified information, as well as business ties with the US military and intelligence services.

In October 2022, American political scientist Ian Bremmer reported that Elon Musk spoke with Vladimir Putin, referring to a conversation with the businessman. Bremmer claimed that, according to Musk, Putin is "ready to negotiate" on the condition that Crimea remains Russian, Ukraine is neutral and recognizes the annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. Also, Bremmer said, Putin mentioned a possible nuclear strike in a conversation with Musk in the event of Ukraine's invasion of Crimea, and Musk noted that "everything must be done to avoid such an outcome." After Bremmer's statement, Elon Musk publicly said that he had spoken to Putin only once - around April 2021, and the topic of their conversation was space.

Elon Musk began seeking a conversation with Putin in February 2021, when he invited the Russian president via Twitter to chat on the social network Clubhouse. The Kremlin then said that they wanted to figure out "what is meant, what is proposed." Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov announced at the end of February, two weeks after Musk's offer, that the businessman had not responded to clarifying questions from the Kremlin.

According to The Wall Street Journal, in 2022, in addition to Putin, Musk also began communicating with high-ranking Russian officials. Among those with whom Musk spoke was the first deputy head of the presidential administration of the Russian Federation, Sergei Kiriyenko, a source told the publication. It is unclear what Musk and Kiriyenko discussed. The source noted that the conversations took place when the Kremlin was putting pressure on Musk's business and "implicitly making threats against him." The newspaper cited one example of public pressure: in May 2022, the head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin said that Elon Musk "will have to answer like an adult" because the Pentagon supplied Starlink communication systems to Azov fighters in Mariupol. SpaceX refused to pay for the Starlink satellite network for Ukraine A week and a half ago, Elon Musk proposed a “peace plan” for Ukraine and Russia, which was sharply rejected in Kyiv.

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