Elon Musk met with Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. on Monday for a discussion focused on ways to defuse tensions between Iran and America, sources have said.
The meeting between the tech billionaire and Amir Saeid Iravani lasted more than an hour and was held at a secret location in New York, The New York Times reported, per Iranian officials. The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, described the meeting as “positive” and “good news.”
It comes following the announcement this week that Musk would, along with former presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, head up the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the upcoming Trump administration.
When asked about the meeting, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said, “We do not comment on reports of private meetings that did or did not occur.”
Despite his status as a private citizen, Musk has already played a role of significant influence in the Trump campaign and, according to The Times, is believed to have sat in on nearly every appointment for the President-elect’s new cabinet so far.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss was also present on a call with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky shortly after Trump’s victory. Musk has also played a key role in providing communications capability to Ukraine in the war with Russia.
His near-constant presence close to the President-elect has earned him the moniker of “First Buddy.”
One of the Iranian officials said that it was the self-styled “First Buddy” who had requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site, The Times reported.
During his first term in office, Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and other world powers, calling it “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”
The President-elect also imposed tough economic sanctions on Iranian oil revenues and international banking transactions. He also ordered the assassination of a top Iranian general, Qassim Suleimani, in Iraq in 2020.
In turn, Trump has become the target of Iranian hostilities.
The Justice Department recently disclosed an Iranian murder-for-hire plot to kill the President-elect, charging a man who said he had been tasked by a government official before the election with planning the assassination of Trump.
Investigators were told of the plan to kill Trump by Farhad Shakeri, an accused Iranian government asset who spent time in American prisons for robbery and who authorities say maintains a network of criminal associates enlisted by Tehran for surveillance and murder-for-hire plots.
Shakeri told the FBI that a contact in Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard instructed him this past September to set aside other work he was doing and assemble a plan within seven days to surveil and ultimately kill Trump, according to a criminal complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan.
Despite reports of Monday’s meeting being officially unconfirmed, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi posted to X on Thursday. “Differences can be resolved through cooperation and dialogue. We agreed to proceed with courage and good will. Iran has never left the negotiation table on its peaceful nuclear program,” he said.
Araghchi made the comments following a meeting in Tehran with Rafael Grossi, the head of U.N.’s atomic watchdog.
