Senators Call for Investigation Into Elon Musk’s Contacts With Russia
WASHINGTON—Two Democratic senators are demanding an investigation into conversations between Elon Musk and Russian President Vladimir Putin, calling for the Departments of Justice and Defense to determine whether national security is at risk over contracts his company SpaceX has with the Pentagon and the intelligence community.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Musk, who has become a close adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, has been in routine contact with Putin and other Russian government officials. Specifics of the conversations aren’t known but run across a number of topics, from personal to business to geopolitical tensions.
Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D., N.H.) and Jack Reed (D., R.I.) are asking the Biden administration to investigate if the conversations constitute a security risk in two letters sent Friday, one to Attorney General Merrick Garland and to the Inspector General of the Department of Defense, Robert Storch. A separate letter was sent to Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall.
“These relationships between a well-known U.S. adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. government funding, pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk’s reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder,” the senators wrote to Garland and Storch.
The senators also called Musk’s contact with Putin’s first deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko “deeply concerning.” Kiriyenko has been accused by Justice Department prosecutors of using X and other platforms to “covertly spread Russian government propaganda with the aim of … influencing voters in U.S. and foreign elections, including the U.S. 2024 Presidential Election,” according to a Justice Department statement. Musk owns X, formerly Twitter.
Musk has a security clearance that allows him unique access to certain classified information.
The senators called for an immediate review to determine whether SpaceX, which is the main rocket launcher for the Pentagon and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, should potentially be barred from government business.
In the separate letter to Kendall, the two wrote that “Mr. Musk’s reported behavior could pose serious risks to national security” and called for a “reconsideration” of SpaceX’s “outsized role” in the military’s space program.
Shaheen is a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees and Reed is chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
Musk didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Previously, Musk responded derisively on X to the Journal’s story about his contacts with Russia, without denying it. In one instance, he used two laughing emojis in response to a tweet that said, “Welp, the Swamp’s ‘Trump is Hitler’ didn’t work. Might as well give ‘Elon is a Russian agent’ a whirl.”
Musk, who personally spent $200 million to elect Trump, has become an integral part of the president-elect’s transition team. Trump named the billionaire to a new department to look at government efficiency and he has joined conversations with foreign leaders, including a call with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky. And earlier this week, Musk met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York in which the two men reportedly discussed easing tensions between the U.S. and Iran.
The calls for an investigation follow an earlier demand for an inquiry by the head of NASA.
“I don’t know that that story is true. I think it should be investigated,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Oct. 25 at a conference in Washington. “If the story is true that there have been multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia then I think that would be concerning, particularly for NASA, for the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies.”