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."
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.
Kremlin denies report of Musk-Putin secret talks
Moscow (AFP) Oct 25, 2024 -
The Kremlin on Friday denied a report by The Wall Street Journal that Russian President Vladimir Putin and billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk had been in regular secret contact since 2022.
"It's all untrue, absolutely false information published in the newspaper," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.
The WSJ report claimed Putin had discussed personal and political matters with the world's richest man, who has supported Donald Trump's election campaign with donations and messages on his X platform.
The report alleges Putin asked Musk to avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favour to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Peskov said that Putin "had one contact with Musk before 2022", when "they spoke on the phone".
"It was a fact-finding conversation. They talked about more visionary technology, about technology for the future," he said.
"It was a medium-length phone call. That was the only contact".
"After that there were no contacts between Putin and Musk. All claims of this are false," he added.
Peskov said the US report was "most likely yet another fake story during a US election campaign that is heated to the limit."
"The race is close to the finishing line -- opponents will stoop to any means," he said.
"A week ago, they were saying Putin chats to Trump all day, now he allegedly speaks to Musk," Peskov said, referring to a book by a US journalist published this month.
Written by Bob Woodward, the book, "War" claimed Trump secretly sent Covid test kits to Putin and spoke multiple times with the Russian leader after leaving office.
Peskov confirmed that Trump sent Putin Covid tests but denied any calls between them after Trump left office.
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