WSJ bombshell: Musk in regular contact with Putin since 2022
US tech mogul Elon Musk has allegedly been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022, a new report by The Wall Street Journal claims.
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US tech mogul Elon Musk has allegedly been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022, a new report by The Wall Street Journal claims.
The two men, as confirmed to the Journal by several current and former American, European, and Russian officials, discuss personal topics, business, and geopolitical issues.
Putin once allegedly asked Musk to avoid activating his Starlink satellites over Taiwan as a favor to China’s president Xi Jinping, said two sources. Beijing claims historical sovereignty over Taiwan and has vowed to annex it.
That would explain why Starlink is not available in Taiwan, even though officially, negotiations between Taipei and SpaceX fell apart over Taiwan’s requirement that a local entity have a majority share of any joint venture established.
Musk gave Ukraine free access to Starlink after Russia invaded the neighboring country in February 2022. But his relations with Kyiv soured later – Musk stopped funding the terminals, and the Pentagon now needs to purchase them from SpaceX.
In February 2024, Ukraine’s main military intelligence agency even claimed that Starlink terminals were used by Russian forces in occupied territories. SpaceX and Musk said it wasn’t true.
It’s interesting that precisely in late 2022, when he allegedly began talking to Putin, Musk – who now criticizes US military aid to Kyiv – first repeated Moscow’s talking points when it comes to the war.
Musk said that a referendum should be held in Russian-occupied territories to leave their fate to “the will of people,” and recognized Crimea as part of Russia, even though it was illegally annexed in 2014.
According to the Journal’s sources, Musk and Putin have continued talking this year, even as the billionaire is now actively involved in the election campaign of Donald Trump, the Republican candidate and former US president.
If Trump wins, Musk could be awarded an influential role in his administration. Trump has just said he would call both Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on election night to seek peace.
However, the Democrats are in charge so far, and Musk’s contacts with the Kremlin raise potential national security concerns.
The billionaire’s ties with US military and space agencies are deep – he even has a security clearance and access to certain classified information. But if Musk is in regular contact with Putin, can the government be sure he’s not giving anything away to Russia?
Officially, Musk didn’t respond to the WSJ’s request for comment but on X, he mocks the new report and, in reply to admittedly bizarre calls to arrest him, wrote: “SpaceX is the primary communication system of the Ukrainian military on the front lines because everything else has been destroyed or jammed by the Russians!”
Still, earlier this year, Musk gave airtime to Putin and his views on the US and Ukraine when X carried Tucker Carlson’s interview with the Russian leader inside the Kremlin.