This is not a good look at all.
Yes Sir
Elon Musk has had repeated phone chats with Russian president Vladimir Putin — and is apparently even doing his bidding.
In interviews with the Wall Street Journal, federal officials on both sides of the pond have confirmed that since late 2022 Musk has held numerous secret phone calls with the Russian leader in which they discuss everything from their personal lives to global politics.
A former Russian intelligence official told the newspaper that during one of those chats, Putin told the billionaire not to activate his Starlink internet satellites over Taiwan as a purported “favor” to China and its president, Xi Jinping.
Though the ask came during a period of cooperation between Russia and China, it’s otherwise unclear what its motivation might have been. Given that Beijing considers the sovereign state to be part of its territory — and Xi’s apparent urge to “reunify” the two countries — it certainly sounds political.
While there’s no official confirmation as to whether or not Musk acquiesced, the fact that Taiwan still does not have Starlink access seems proof enough that at very least, he hasn’t turned on his satellites over the island nation for some reason.
Insider Anxieties
As the WSJ notes, US officials are understandably quite concerned about them in light of Musk’s increasingly desperate attempts to get Donald Trump back into the White House.
The calls were not widely known in the American government prior to this reporting. Several current White House officials told the newspaper they were unaware of them.
Because SpaceX operates under federal contracts, this information could potentially hinder Musk’s relationship with the US government — though it doesn’t seem to have done so yet.
“They don’t love it,” one of the WSJ‘s insiders said of the government’s attitude towards the talks. That’s a far cry from doing anything about them, though, and the paper’s sources say that the Biden administration does not believe any “security breaches” occurred during those phone calls.
Musk has not yet responded to these bombshell allegations. Spokespeople for both the Kremlin and Trump’s campaign dismissed suggestions of impropriety, with the former saying that talks between Musk and Putin primarily discussed space.
More on Muskian politicking: Elon Musk Appears to Have Realized How Badly He Screwed Up With the “Paying Voters” Thing
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