NASA chief calls for investigation into report that 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 issues, business and geopolitical tensions” with the Russian leader, raises national security concerns because SpaceX's relationships with NASA and the U.S. military may give Musk access to sensitive information could have obtained government information and US secret services.

“I don’t know if this 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, particularly for NASA, the Department of Defense and some intelligence agencies.”

Some US officials have raised concerns over Musk's interactions with US adversaries such as Russia over the last year, but US intelligence agencies have concerns about investigating those interactions because Musk is an American citizen, an official familiar with the matter told CNN .

Several White House officials told the Journal they were unaware of contact between Musk and Putin, and the newspaper said knowledge of the conversations “appears to be a closely guarded secret within the administration.” The conversations were confirmed to the Journal by several current and former U.S., 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 spokesman John Kirby said Friday he had seen the reporting but that the White House was “unable to confirm it” and deferred questions to Musk. A Pentagon spokesman told the Journal that the Defense Department does not comment on “an individual's security clearance, vetting or status, or personnel security policy matters” when reporting on an individual's actions.

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

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022, Musk's support for Ukraine – exemplified by SpaceX's provision of Starlink services – has waned as his public statements on the conflict have been aligned with those of Trump, who said he would talk about an end of the conflict negotiate war quickly. The satellite internet terminals provided by Musk's company were an important source of communications for the Ukrainian military, allowing it to fight and stay connected even as cellular and internet networks were destroyed.

Dmitri Alperovitch, a Russia and cybersecurity expert, told CNN's Alex Marquardt on “CNN News Central” Friday that Musk's Starlink is “crucial for Ukraine in particular, because they really couldn't fight this war without his services.”

After Musk announced his early support for Ukraine, SpaceX suddenly asked the Pentagon to pay tens of millions of dollars each month to fund Starlink in Ukraine and exonerate SpaceX. In response to this reporting, Musk suddenly announced on Twitter that he had withdrawn the funding application. Around the same time, Musk used a poll to After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky questioned Musk's preference for war, the tech entrepreneur responded that he was “still very supportive of Ukraine” but feared a “massive escalation.”

SpaceX had previously limited its Starlink signal to areas controlled by Ukrainian forces, hindering potential advances that would have relied on Starlink communications. SpaceX then expanded it to the rest of the country, and earlier this year Ukraine's defense intelligence claimed it had confirmed the use of Starlink satellite communications by Russian forces in occupied territories. Russia apparently bought the terminals from third parties; SpaceX said it does not do any business with the Russian government or its military and that its service would not work in Russia. The statement did not address whether it would work in occupied Ukraine.

Ukraine's claim followed revelations in a Musk biography by Walter Isaacson about the satellite system's use in war. According to an excerpt from the book, Musk last year did not grant a Ukrainian request to turn on his company's Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast to prevent a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet.

Musk's decision, which led to Ukrainian officials begging him to turn the satellites back on, was based on an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons – a fear Musk said was raised through conversations with senior Russian officials Isaacson was further strengthened.

In October 2022, Musk denied American political scientist Ian Bremmer's claim that he had spoken to Putin about the war and a proposed “peace plan” to end the conflict.

Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla and owner of X, has emerged as a major financial figure in this year's presidential election. In October, he poured nearly $44 million into a super PAC committed to restoring Trump to the White House — bringing the billionaire's total donation to the group to nearly $119 million — and earlier this month he was on the campaign trail with Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

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

In recent days, Musk also offered a stimulating $1 million daily sweepstakes for swing state voters that drew scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Justice. Despite a Justice Department warning that the payments could be illegal, Musk's super PAC on Thursday gave out two $1 million prizes to registered voters in Michigan and Wisconsin.

This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN's Sean Lyngaas, Jackie Wattles and Kaanita Iyer contributed to this report.