The richest man in the worldthe largest financier of the campaign Donald Trump and one of the largest suppliers of services to the United States government had «regular contacts» with Vladimir Putin and other leading figures of the Kremlin. This is revealed by Wall Street Journal citing American, European and Russian officials who said the conversations between the tsar and the patron of Tesla And SpaceX they ranged from “personal matters” to economic issues and geopolitics. At a certain point, according to the sources cited by the newspaper, Putin he would even ask Musk to «not activate» its service Starlink satellites to Taiwan “to do a favor” to the Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
If it were confirmed, ten days from American electionsthe news would be disturbing from several points of view. Meanwhile the billionaire has a number of ongoing contracts with the Pentagon and agencies US intelligencesome of which on operations classified. Secondly, through the platform Xhas a power of extraordinary influence in American society; and last but not least, Musk he became one of the Republican candidate’s biggest supporters White Houseor the new potential president of the United States.
In the past the tycoon has denied sympathizing with Fly claiming to have spoken to Putin only once, in April 2021of topics related to space. The latter circumstance was confirmed by the spokesperson of the Kremlin Dmitry Peskovwhich instead defined the news as Wsj «totally false», citing only a phone call between the two «before 2022” to talk about «visionary technologies and solutions for the future.”
At the beginning ofinvasion of Ukraine on the part of Russia he sided with Volodymyr Zelensky and donated i Starlink terminals which greatly helped the troops Ukrainians. But his point of view has progressively shifted positions pro-Russian during the war, as when in September of 2022 he denied the Ukrainians the use of his terminals to guide i drones in the attack on one Russian naval base in Crimea.
Musk he then explained that he imposed the restrictions because Starlink it is intended for uses civilians and feared that any attack on the Crimea could have triggered one nuclear war. In the’October of the same year he took the bizarre initiative of throwing up X the vote on a plan of peace for Ukraine which reflected some points of the Russian proposal, including the occupation of Crimea and the neutrality of Kiev out of the Born. It was precisely then, reveals one of the sources, that between billionaire and the leader of the Kremlin they began contacts which have continued to this day.