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NASA chief calls for investigation into report Musk and Putin spoke regularly
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NASA chief calls for investigation into report Musk and Putin spoke regularly



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 says the SpaceX founder discussed “personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions” with the Russian leader, raises national security concerns because SpaceX’s relationships with NASA and the US military have given Musk access to sensitive government information and to American intelligence.

“I don’t know if that story is true. I think it should be investigated,” Nelson told Semafor’s Burgess Everett. “If the story is true that there were multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia, then I think that would be concerning, especially for NASA, for the Department of Defense, for some intelligence agencies.”

Several White House officials told the Journal they had no knowledge of contact between Musk and Putin, and the newspaper said knowledge of the talks “appears to be a closely guarded secret within the government.” The talks were confirmed to the Journal by several current and former US, European and Russian officials

In one instance, the paper cited a request by Putin to Musk not to activate his Starlink satellite Internet service in Taiwan “as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.”

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

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Friday he had seen the report, but the White House was “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 “the security clearance, review or status of any individual or on matters of personnel security policy in the context of reports of any individual’s actions.”

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

Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla and the owner of X, appeared as a major financial figure in this year’s presidential election. He invested nearly $44 million in October in a super PAC working on restoration trump card at 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.

Also musk held its 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 has also offered spectacular $1 million daily sweepstakes for voters in swing states who have reviewed by the US Department of Justice. Despite a warning from the Justice Department that the payments could be illegal, Musk’s super PAC granted two million dollar prizes to registered voters in Michigan and Wisconsin on Thursday.

CNN’s Jackie Wattles contributed to this report.