https://abcnews.go.com/US/elon-musk-regular-contact-vladimir-putin-new-report/story?id=115130093Elon 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."
