Concern over Elon Musk’s alleged secret Putin talks as SpaceX, Tesla CEO boosts Trump
The head of Nasa says that claims Musk had contact with the Russian leader ‘should be investigated’, and ‘would be concerning’ if true
Billionaire Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and an avid supporter of Donald Trump, was plunged into new controversy on Friday after a report that he is in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Wall Street Journal story, which has been denied by the Kremlin, comes just days after the US Justice Department sent a letter to Musk’s America PAC warning that its US$1 million giveaways to registered voters may violate federal law.
Nasa administrator Bill Nelson said on Friday that the report “should be investigated”
“If the story is true that there have been multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia, then I think that would be concerning, particularly for Nasa and the Department of Defence and for some of the intelligence agencies,” Nelson said at an event hosted by online news outlet Semafor.
Musk, 53, the chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla and the owner of X, formerly Twitter, has thrown his millions, time and outsize influence into sending former Republican US president Trump back to the White House since endorsing him in July.
Musk has reportedly donated US$118 million to his personal pro-Trump political action committee, appeared on stage with the Republican presidential candidate at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and hosted a series of town halls on his own in the battleground state seen as critical in the November election.
