Elon Musk’s conversations with Vladimir Putin raise red flags – WSJ

Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX (SPACE) and Tesla (TSLA) and owner of social platform X, has been in discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin dating back to late 2022, The Wall Street Journal said on Friday.

According to the WSJ report, the discussions between the two global icons have been confirmed by multiple current and former U.S., European and Russian officials. The talks between the two ranged from general personal dialogue to business and geopolitical matters.

The WSJ also said that at one juncture, Putin requested that Musk refrain from activating his Starlink satellite internet service over the area of Taiwan as a personal favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping. The newspaper cited two people briefed on the request.

Seeking Alpha could not immediately reach Elon Musk for comment.

The relationship and discussions between the two have raised potential national security risks, especially considering Musk’s recent support for former President Donald Trump, who is campaigning against Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming election set for November 5.

Musk, through SpaceX, has built strong ties with U.S. government agencies, chief among them NASA. According to the WSJ, Musk also has a security clearance that provides him with access to certain classified information.

The report quoted a Pentagon spokesman as saying: “We do not comment on any individual’s security clearance, review or status, or about personnel security policy matters in the context of reports about any individual’s actions.”

Back in October 2022, Musk came out on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) and stated that he had spoken to Putin just once over the topic of space, which occurred near April 2021.

The WSJ quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying that the only interactions that the Kremlin has had with Musk was a telephone call in which the two talked about “space as well as current and future technologies.”

The Pentagon and the Kremlin did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Seeking Alpha.

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