Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Russian president Vladimir Putin since late 2022.
That’s according to The Wall Street Journal, which reports that the conversations have raised national security concerns among some intelligence officials. At one point, Putin reportedly asked Musk to avoid activating Starlink, his satellite-based internet service, in Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
As The WSJ notes, Musk and Russia’s interests have increasingly overlapped in the past year. Russia has used X, Musk’s social network, to mount disinformation campaigns, including about vice presidential candidate Tim Walz and the federal response to recent hurricanes. And the Ukrainian government has said that Russian forces occupying the country have begun using Starlink to extend the range of their drones.
Sources tell The WSJ that the U.S. government faces a dilemma because it’s so dependent on Musk’s technologies. SpaceX, for instance, launches critical national security satellites into orbit.