Elon Musk, whose estimated $270 billion personal fortune is helping fund Donald Trump’s campaign, has maintained “regular contact” with Vladimir Putin since late 2022, according to a bombshell report by the Wall Street Journal.
The talks coincided with the entrepreneur’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in October of that year and increased in frequency and scope since then. Russia exerted pressure and even made implicit threats against Musk’s businesses, the paper wrote.
Discussions continued in the subsequent months stretching all the way into this year, with other high-ranking Russian officials participating in the talks.
Notably, these included Sergei Kiriyenko, Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, who stands accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of creating over 30 internet domains to spread Russian disinformation online with the purpose of eroding American support for Ukraine and influencing the U.S. presidential election.
Written and researched by five Journal reporters—three of whom focus on national security—as well as two contributing authors, the story pieced together various accounts of what transpired over the past two years from multiple anonymous officials, both current and former, in the U.S., Europe, and Russia.
Musk did not provide a comment to the Wall Street Journal. He could not be immediately reached by Fortune for a statement.
Alerted to the article by a user on X—formerly Twitter—Musk replied: “The WSJ is controlled by the (left wing) journalists union, not Rupert Murdoch!” It does appear as if the entrepreneur at least read the article, however, since he used the opportunity to attack one expert cited in the piece by name.
Also, @ianbremmer, GFY
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 25, 2024
Putin spokesman Dmitri Peskov denied to the paper that the two had maintained regular talks. The Kremlin did not initially respond to a Fortune request for comment, nor did the White House.
Putin's ties to social media
What Putin lacks as a military leader, the former KGB secret agent makes up for in subterfuge. He has identified disinformation as a key method for weakening strategic opponents by undermining trust in liberal democracy and civil society. In particular, he has relied on the use of social media for its ability to spread rumors faster than they can be debunked.
Earlier this year, Musk’s X platform exclusively hosted Tucker Carlson’s two-hour-long critically panned interview in the Kremlin with Putin. In it, the Russian president gushed that “there’s no stopping” Musk. Shortly after it aired, Russia's state-controlled news agency reported that its president’s interview was viewed over 150 million times on X in less than 24 hours.
Recently the U.S. Department of Justice blew the whistle on a media company called Tenet, known for its brand of alt-right podcasters including Tim Pool, after revealing it was heavily funded by the Russian state. Musk often amplified and boosted their social media posts to his 200 million-plus followers on X.
Meanwhile, Musk himself claims to be critical of disinformation and propaganda, but readily shares baseless rumors and even news-story mockups that have been deliberately fabricated. One of these included a supposed headline that ran on The Atlantic, resulting in his own Community Notes flagging his post just this week.
Musk's talks with Putin a closely guarded secret
The report said Musk, who enjoys security clearance with the U.S. government, had not been acting at the behest of the White House, for example to keep back channels for dialogue with Putin open amid the ongoing war. Rather, the talks—a closely held secret in the Biden administration, according to the paper—were unsanctioned.
The federal government is heavily reliant on Musk's SpaceX company for its space program. Yet the few U.S. officials aware of the Putin discussions took no action, in part because there was no evidence of a security breach.
“They don’t love it,” said one unnamed source cited by the Journal reported.
The Journal also cited a newsletter published in October 2022 from Eurasia group founder Ian Bremmer alleging Musk told him he knew what the Kremlin’s red lines were in the conflict. While Musk warned people against trusting what the geopolitical risk expert writes, he did not explicitly deny the claim.
Nobody should trust Bremmer
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 11, 2022
The WSJ report comes at a sensitive time in the U.S. election campaign. Musk has taken a far more politically visible and active role than any other wealthy backer including George Soros, the financier Musk once branded a supervillain for his political contributions to the Democrats.
Legally dubious million-dollar giveaway
The Tesla CEO and X owner has recently upped his involvement in the election, taking to the campaign trail personally to hold pro-Trump events in the key battleground of Pennsylvania.
In the clearest sign he has no intention of allowing Harris to win, he made the controversial decision last week to award $1 million every day until Nov. 5 to registered swing-state voters who sign a declaration of support for the Constitution hosted by his America political action committee.
Everyone who signs is required to leave personal contact information in a database to be later verified by Musk staffers. To date, his PAC has neither released the names of its signatories nor their number, which is typically something petitioners do to demonstrate how popular the idea is.
Critics have called it an attempt to bribe people to get them to register—handing him their contact details in the process. It may violate the law, they claim. As a result, billionaire Democratic backer Mark Cuban has argued Harris is really campaigning against Musk, not Trump.
