SUBSCRIBE AND SAVE
Less than $3 per week
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a top U.S. defense contractor with a security clearance, “has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022,” The Wall Street Journal said Thursday, citing “several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials.” The conversations coincided with Musk “stepping up his criticism” of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, allowing “Russia’s use of X for disinformation,” and increasing his involvement in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, the Journal said.
U. S. officials have not expressed considerations about security breaches through Elon Musk, a user familiar with Musk’s conversations with Moscow told the Journal, but they “don’t like” his contacts with PutinArray given the government’s reliance on rockets and Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites. The discussions “touch on non-public topics, business and geopolitical tensions,” the Journal said, and at one point Putin asked Musk “to activate his Starlink satellite web service in Taiwan to serve Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Musk responded to the Journal’s request for comment, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied that Putin has been in normal contact with Musk. Earlier this year, Putin told Tucker Carlson in an interview broadcast on Musk’s X platform that Musk “is going to do what he thinks he wants to do” and that “common ground has to be found, solutions have to be found. ” .
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Peter has worked as editor and news and culture editor at The Week since the site launched in 2008. He covers politics, global affairs, faith and cultural currents. His career as a journalist began as an editor at a monetary news agency and included editorial positions. in The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.