Russian President Vladimir Putin and billionaire Elon Musk have been secretly discussing geopolitical and business issues since 2022, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal reported that since late 2022, the world's richest billionaire Elon Musk and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been in regular contact. According to some US, European and Russian officials, the content of these talks is related to some personal issues as well as business and geopolitical tensions.
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| Russian President Vladimir Putin and tech billionaire Elon Musk. Photo: CNN |
Elon Musk is now a leading supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, and is likely to be appointed to the Trump administration if the former president is re-elected. With relations between the US and Russia increasingly tense, Musk’s talks with Putin could signal a desire for reconciliation and an end to the war in Ukraine.
However, some US officials have expressed concerns about US national security, in the context of billionaire Elon Musk's close relationship with the country's intelligence and military agencies. It is known that in 2021, the billionaire's SpaceX Company won a $1.8 billion contract to provide rocket launchers to the US Department of Defense and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).
According to the Wall Street Journal, some White House officials said they were unaware of the relationship between Mr. Musk and Mr. Putin. Some other officials expressed displeasure at the information, but affirmed that Mr. Musk has not taken any action that violates US national security.
Billionaire Elon Musk has long expressed interest in Russia and its space rocket program. In his biography of the billionaire, author Walter Isaacson said that Musk traveled to Moscow in 2002 to negotiate the purchase of rockets for his space program. Although the negotiations failed, the Russian partners gave the billionaire a bottle of vodka with his image painted on Mars.
Since then, billionaire Elon Musk has repeatedly “stepped into” the world of politics. He has met and talked many times with heads of state such as Argentine President Javier Milei and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
In October 2022, Mr. Musk first announced that he had spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Sharing on the social network X, Mr. Musk shared that the conversation took place around April 2021, with the main topic revolving around space.
Similarly, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Russian president had only contacted Musk once by phone, during which he and Musk discussed issues related to space, as well as current and future technologies. Mr. Peskov also affirmed that neither President Putin nor Kremlin officials spoke regularly with Mr. Musk.
But according to two unnamed Russian officials, President Putin and several other senior officials have had multiple conversations with Mr. Musk since 2022. One of those officials was Mr. Sergei Kiriyenko, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Russian military, but the content of the conversation between the two is currently unclear.
In late 2022, political scientist Ian Bremmer, founder of the New York-based consulting firm Eurasia Group, also shared on Twitter that Mr. Musk had confirmed that he had spoken to President Putin and was aware of the Kremlin's "red lines." Billionaire Elon Musk later denied the statement.
These conversations also marked a shift in Elon Musk’s stance on the Russia-Ukraine war. According to the Wall Street Journal, as of July 2022, Musk had provided about 15,000 Starlink internet devices to Ukrainian soldiers, but by September of that year, Musk had stopped providing internet service to Ukrainian military operations in the Crimean peninsula.
Billionaire Elon Musk later said he made the move because Starlink's internet equipment was for civilian use only, and he believed any Ukrainian attack on Crimea could lead to nuclear war. The Ukrainian military later tried to convince Musk to reactivate the Starlink service, but was unsuccessful.
In 2023, Mr. Musk publicly opposed U.S. aid to Kyiv several times. In addition, some Ukrainian officials said they had seen the Russian military use Mr. Musk’s own Starlink technology to communicate and extend the range of drones. However, Mr. Musk later asserted that no Starlink equipment had been sold or used in Russia.
Earlier this year, Mr. Musk also broadcast a two-hour interview between host Tucker Carlson and President Putin inside the Kremlin on his social networking site X.
In the interview, Mr. Putin affirmed that billionaire Musk is a very smart person. The Russian leader shared: "Nothing can stop Elon Musk, he will do what he thinks he has to do. You need to find some common ground with him, you need to find some ways to convince him."
Source: https://congthuong.vn/bi-mat-dang-sau-cuoc-tro-chuyen-giua-tong-thong-putin-va-ty-phu-elon-musk-354683.html
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