Oct. 26 (UPI) — NASA Administrator Bill Nelson says reported secret conversations held between SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Russian President Vladimir Putin are “concerning” and, if true, should be investigated.
Speaking Friday an event hosted by the online news site Semafor, Nelson was asked about this week’s story in the Wall Street Journal, which reported that Musk and Putin have been holding secret conversations on personal, political and business matters since 2022, even as Russia is prosecuting its brutal invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
In his role as the leader of SpaceX, Musk is a major commercial partner with NASA.
“[SpaceX] have been phenomenally successful,” Nelson said Friday. “I don’t know that that story is true. I think it should be investigated. If it’s true there have been multiple conversations with Elon Musk and the president of Russia, then that would be concerning, particularly for NASA and the Department of Defense.”
Asked about the WSJ report on Elon Musk’s conversations with Putin, @SenBillNelson tells @burgessev:
“[SpaceX] have been phenomenally successful … I don’t know that that story is true. I think it should be investigated. If the story is true … that would be concerning.” pic.twitter.com/5Mlo2AEDNx— Semafor (@semafor) October 25, 2024
As of Saturday, Musk had not responded publicly to the report.
SpaceX’s essential role as a NASA partner was demonstrated as recently as this week with the completion of the Crew-8 mission, in which a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft was used to carry out a crew rotation mission at the International Space Station.
The Journal, citing “several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials,” reported one of the alleged conversations between Musk and Putin concerned SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet access system. The sources claimed Putin pressured Musk to withhold Starlink’s military service, StarShield, from Taiwan as a favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping, a key Kremlin ally.
The report provided background to a controversy raised in February, when members of the House of Representatives’ China committee demanded that Musk allow U.S. troops stationed in Taiwan to get access to StarShield after they discovered it wasn’t available on the island nation.
The committee suggested the situation could violate SpaceX’s Pentagon contract, but the company denied any violation of its obligations.
The WSJ report raised new questions about the power and influence of the tech billionaire over the U.S. space, social media and political arenas. In addition to his role as CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk is the owner of the X social media platform and has emerged as a key megadonor to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
StarLink has become an essential communications tool in Ukraine’s war effort against invading Russian forces, but in recent months Musk’s social media posts have signaled his views on the conflict are becoming closer to Trump’s, whose running mate, Sen. JD Vance, has suggested that negotiations be held with Russia’s illegally seized territorial gains still in place.
Musk in 2022 also asked X users to answer a poll question about a “Ukraine-Russia Peace” plan that included carrying out new elections in the eastern regions of the country annexed by Moscow.
