Elon Musk is in 'regular contact' with Vladimir Putin, new report alleges
Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who owns Tesla and SpaceX, has allegedly been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin since 2022, a new report claims.
The allegations arose in an article published Thursday night in The Wall Street Journal, which said "several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials" had confirmed that the discussions between Musk and Putin touched on everything from business and geopolitics to personal topics.
"At one point, Putin asked the billionaire to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping," according to the report from the Journal. It is not known if Musk agreed to the request, the report said.
The report arrived on the same day that Musk announced he would be resuming his America PAC town halls, where he has previously handed out awards for his controversial $1 million sweepstakes giveaway for registered voters who sign his political action committee's petition pledging to uphold free speech and the right to bear arms in swing states.
The appearances had paused briefly this week, with some speculation that the timing was tied to a warning letter that was sent to the PAC this week from the Justice Department.
Trump stated earlier this month, that he would tap Musk to lead a government efficiency commission if elected.
Trump's team previously denied that the former president continued speaking with Putin after he left office, refuting an account in journalist Bob Woodward's new book, "War," that Trump had sent Russia's president a COVID-19 testing kit during the height of the pandemic.
When interviewed by Bloomberg Editor-In-Chief John Micklethwait at the Chicago Economic Club, Trump said that if he had talked to Putin, it would have been a "smart thing."
"While the U.S. and its allies have isolated Putin in recent years, Musk's dialogue could signal re-engagement with the Russian leader, and reinforce Trump's expressed desire to cut a deal over major fault lines such as the war in Ukraine," The Wall Street Journal wrote.
The Journal reported that Musk did not comment for their story. Musk did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.
Through SpaceX, Musk has earned a national security clearance that gives him access to certain classified information. The Journal cited a person who was reportedly aware of the conversations between Musk and Putin who said no alerts have been raised by the administration about any possible security breaches by Musk.
At a campaign appearance last week, Musk commented, "I do have a top-secret clearance, but, I'd have to say, like most of the stuff that I'm aware of…the reason they keep it top secret is because it's so boring."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in the report that the only communication the Kremlin has had with Musk was one telephone call in which he and Putin discussed "space as well as current and future technologies."
Peskov denied the claims that Musk and Putin were in regular contact, saying after the report was published, "This is absolutely false information published in The Wall Street Journal newspaper."
On Musk's part, he said in 2022, in a post on X, that he had spoken to Putin only once. In the post, he claimed that the conversation took place in 2021 and was about "space."
He did, however, give Putin airtime through his social media platform, X, which aired the Russian president's interview with Tucker Carlson in February 2024. In the interview, Putin called Musk a "smart person."
In the same interview, Putin said, "There's no stopping Elon Musk. He's going to do what he thinks he needs to do."
According to The Wall Street Journal report, Musk was having regular conversations with "high-level Russians" by late 2022, a person familiar with the interactions told the paper. That source told the Journal that there was pressure from the Kremlin on Musk's businesses and "implicit threats against [Musk]."
The Journal suggested the impetus for these alleged threats were months of Musk's public proclamations of support for Ukraine, as well as granting Ukrainians access to SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet.
In October 2022, even as his followers on X began to question where his allegiances lie in the conflict, Musk posted a poll on X inquiring as to how Ukraine and Russia could resolve their conflict, echoing some propositions that Russia had put forth to Ukraine at the time.
That month, Ian Bremmer, the founder of political risk consulting firm Eurasia Group, wrote in a newsletter to subscribers that he spoke to Musk two weeks prior about his conversation with Putin.
According to Bremmer's Oct. 10 newsletter obtained by ABC News, Musk told him he had a direct conversation with Putin about how Russia was "prepared to negotiate" and had outlined the minimum Putin would require to end the war. Putin told Musk that this would include: Crimea remaining Russian; Ukraine accepting a formal status of neutrality; and recognition of Russia's annexations of Luhansk and Donetsk, Kherson control for the water supply to Crimea and Zaporizhzhia for the land bridge "no matter what – the alternative being major escalation."
Putin also told Musk that if Zelenskyy invaded Crimea, Russia would retaliate with a nuclear strike on Ukraine, the newsletter said.
Musk told Bremmer that the Ukrainians asked him to activate Starlink in Crimea and that he refused given the potential for escalation.
"Musk also appeared concerned about more direct threats from Putin. While he didn't surface anything explicit with me, he did talk about Russian cyber capabilities and Russia's potential to disrupt his satellites," Bremmer wrote. "My response was to not take Putin at face value and that there was zero chance Ukraine could or the west would go for Putin's "deal."
Yet shortly after Musk's conversation with both Putin and Bremmer, Musk posted on X essentially the same points that Putin had allegedly spoken to Musk about, labeling the points as "Ukraine-Russia Peace."
At the time, Musk publicly denied in a tweet that he said any of this to Bremmer.
The Wall Street Journal reports, "One current and one former intelligence source said that Musk and Putin have continued to have contact since then, and into this year, as Musk began stepping up his criticism of the U.S. military aid to Ukraine and became involved in Trump's election campaign."
In a statement to ABC News on Friday, U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough said, "We have seen the reporting from Wall Street Journal but cannot corroborate the veracity of those reports and would refer you to Mr. Musk to speak to his private communications."
"We expect everyone who has been granted a security clearance, including contractors, to follow the prescribed procedures for reporting foreign contacts," Gough added.
-ABC News' Will Steakin and Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
