SpaceX CEO Elon Musk should be investigated over media claims that he communicated with several senior Russian officials in recent years, two top US Democratic senators have demanded in a letter.
Jack Reed, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Jeanne Shaheen, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee, raised concerns about the media allegations in a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland and Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch on Friday.
In October, at the height of the US presidential election, the Wall Street Journal claimed that Musk had communicated with several top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, as recently as this year.
Musk oversees billions of dollars in US government contracts as CEO of SpaceX. As the tech billionaire claims to hold top secret level security clearance, and manages extremely sensitive government contracts, his potential communication with Russia is a risk, the senators said.
“These relationships between a well-known US adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in US government funding, pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk’s reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder,” they wrote.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov blasted the pre-election WSJ claims about the billionaire’s alleged phone calls with Putin as “disinformation.” Historically, there has only been one call between the two, he said.
“It was before 2022, they spoke over the telephone,” Peskov stated, adding that they discussed Russia’s scientific progress, and likely future developments. “There were no contacts between Musk and Putin after that, and all claims otherwise are false.”
The spokesman noted the claims are likely related to the “extremely confrontational electoral political fight” in the US.
After his victory in the US presidential race, Donald Trump announced that Musk will head the future Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The initiative will aim to cut trillions of dollars in “waste and fraud” in annual US government spending, “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies,” Trump said on Thursday.
Musk said his role in DOGE “is going to be a revolution.”