NASA chief calls for investigation into report that Musk and Putin have spoken regularly

By Shania Shelton, CNN

(CNN) — NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on Friday called for an investigation into a Wall Street Journal report that SpaceX founder and Donald Trump ally Elon Musk and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been in “regular contact” since late 2022.

The report, which said the SpaceX founder has discussed “personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions” with the Russian leader, raises national security concerns as SpaceX’s relationships with NASA and the US military may have granted Musk access to sensitive government information and US intelligence.

“I don’t know that that story is true. I think it should be investigated,” Nelson told Semafor’s Burgess Everett. “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, for the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies.”

Several White House officials told the Journal they weren’t aware of the contact between Musk and Putin, and the paper said knowledge of the discussions “appears to be a closely held secret in government.” The discussions were confirmed to the Journal by several current and former US, European and Russian officials

In one instance, the newspaper cited a request from Putin to Musk not to activate his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan “as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.”

Musk did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Friday that he had seen the reporting but the White House is “not in a position to corroborate” it and deferred questions to Musk. A Pentagon spokesman told the Journal that the Defense Department does not comment on “any individual’s security clearance, review or status, or about personnel security policy matters in the context of reports about any individual’s actions.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the newspaper that Musk and Putin have only had one telephone call in which they discussed “space as well as current and future technologies.”

Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and owner of X, has emerged as a major financial figure in this year’s presidential election. He plowed nearly $44 million in October into a super PAC working to restore Trump to the White House — pushing the billionaire’s total donations to the group to nearly $119 million — and he appeared with Trump on the campaign trail earlier this month in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Musk also held his own town halls last week in Pennsylvania, where he urged voters to support Trump and promoted several debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The two have publicly discussed a potential government role for Musk.

In recent days, Musk also offered splashy, $1 million daily sweepstakes for swing-state voters that has drawn scrutiny from the US Justice Department. Despite a warning from the Justice Department that the payments might be illegal, Musk’s super PAC awarded two $1 million prizes to registered voters in Michigan and Wisconsin on Thursday.

CNN’s Jackie Wattles contributed to this report.

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