Elon Musk in 'regular contact' with Russian President Putin since late 2022: Report
Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin
X owner Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since late 2022, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.
Musk and Putin continued to hold talks into this year, even as the Tesla CEObegan to criticise the United States military support for Ukraine and became actively involved in the election campaign of Republican candidate and former USpresident Donald Trump, according to the Journal's intelligence sources.
The media reportcame less than two weeksahead of theUS presidentialelection.
However, Musk's influence extends far beyond politics, through his social media platform X and his tech firm SpaceX. With the help of these platforms, he has megabucks government contracts and high-level security clearance to classified US information.
The Russian president once asked Musk to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favour to Chinese President Xi Jinping, report WSJ citingtwo people who were briefed on the request.
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His Starlink satellite internet service highlights a major aspect of Musk's influence. Notably, he gave Ukraine free access to his system after Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Watch |US Election 2024: Musk Makes Controversial Announcement
Musk's move was lauded as an important tool in Ukraine's ability to fight back against the Russian invasion.However, relations between Musk and Ukrainian authorities cooled down as thewar progressed.
The X owner, later, stopped funding the terminals for Ukraine and also prohibited its military's use of Starlink to control drones.
In October 2022, Musk began posting a trail of Kremlin talking points about the war on social media platform X, which he presented as a plan for peace. However, his posts triggered major pushback from top officials in Kyiv andUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kremlin denies report
Kremlin on Friday (Oct 25)denied the reports of Musk in talks with Putin."It's all untrue, absolutely false information published in the newspaper," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
(With inputs from agencies)
