By Joey Roulette
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Reports that billionaire Elon Musk has had multiple conversations with Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, should be investigated by the Pentagon and law enforcement agencies on national security grounds, two senior Democratic senators said in a letter seen by Reuters Friday.
Musk, who was appointed to a top government role by Republican President-elect Donald Trump, oversees billions of dollars in contracts for the Pentagon and the intelligence community as CEO of aerospace company SpaceX.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations, and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed told US Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Pentagon Inspector General that Musk’s involvement in these SpaceX programs should be investigated for possible exclusion and exclusion following reports as recently as October of his conversations with Russian officials. Estoppel refers to exclusion from certain contracts and privileges.
“These relationships between a known U.S. adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. government funding, raise serious questions about Mr. Musk’s reliability as a government contractor and licensee,” the lawmakers said in a joint statement. letter dated Friday.
Several Democratic lawmakers have publicly called for an investigation into Musk’s communications with Moscow since a Wall Street Journal report last month on the alleged contact, but the letter to U.S. officials that could launch such an investigation has not previously been reported.
Shaheen and Reed’s call for a federal investigation is a long-term effort as Trump prepares to return to the White House with the support of Musk, who spent more than $119 million on Trump’s re-election campaign and was appointed as co-head of the incoming department of the newly elected president. of government efficiency.
SpaceX, Musk and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Pentagon and Justice Department did not immediately respond to similar requests.
REPORTS FROM RUSSIAN CONTACT
Reports of Musk’s contact with Russian officials emerged in 2022, when political scientist Ian Beerder, president of consultancy Eurasia Group, said Musk told him he had spoken to Putin about the war in Ukraine and Russia’s red line on using of nuclear weapons. Musk denied Bremmer’s claim, saying he had only discussed space with Putin 18 months earlier.
Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk has had multiple conversations with Russian officials, including Putin and his first deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko, citing unnamed U.S., European and Russian officials.
Shaheen and Reed said in the letter that it was “deeply concerning” that Musk reportedly had conversations with Kiriyenko. He was accused this year by the US Justice Department along with other Russian officials of directing an AI-powered propaganda campaign on Musk’s social media platform X and other sites to advance Russian interests and influence voters ahead of the US presidential election.
Musk has publicly claimed he has a U.S. security clearance, giving him access to classified information at SpaceX, which holds billions of dollars in launch contracts from the Pentagon and NASA. The company also has a $1.8 billion contract for the intelligence community to build a vast spy satellite network, Reuters reports.
“Communications between Russian government officials and any individual with security clearance could endanger our security,” the lawmakers said in the letter.
Tensions between the US and Russia in space have increased since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Pentagon officials have condemned suspicious maneuvers by Russian satellites in orbit and this year accused Russia of deploying one in space to develop a nuclear weapon that can disable large satellite networks.
Musk’s SpaceX has come to dominate the US space industry and is heavily relied upon by NASA and the Pentagon.
The company’s Starlink Internet network, consisting of nearly 7,000 satellites, has made SpaceX the world’s largest satellite operator and a disruptive force in the satellite Internet sector, with strong Pentagon interest in military communications. The Ukrainian military relies heavily on Starlink for battlefield connectivity.
The senators sent a separate letter to U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on Friday, saying Musk’s reported conversations increase the need for more competition in the launch and satellite communications industries and that more companies besides SpaceX should be deployed for sensitive national security missions.
“Mr. Musk’s reported conduct could pose serious risks to national security, and as CEO of a company with billions of dollars in sensitive defense and intelligence contracts, it would warrant a reconsideration of SpaceX’s outsized role in commercial space integration of the Ministry of Defense,” the spokesperson said. lawmakers said.
(Reporting by Joey Roulette; additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Rod Nickel)
