Putin once asked Elon Musk to not activate Starlink over Taiwan as a favor to Xi Jinping: report

The Wall Street Journal reported that Russian leader Vladimir Putin had asked Elon Musk not to provide Starlink in Taiwan as a favor to Xi Jinping.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin once asked Elon Musk to withhold Starlink access from Taiwan as a favor to China’s Xi Jinping, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The outlet cited several unnamed current and former government officials in the US, Europe, and Russia, who said Musk had kept in regular contact with Putin since late 2022.

Per The Journal, the billionaire and world leader would speak on personal matters, business, and geopolitics.

The allegations present awkward implications for the US, with Musk’s SpaceX holding defense and space contracts with the Pentagon and NASA. An analysis published on Monday by The New York Times reported that the company has $3.6 billion in contracts with the Defense Department — primarily for launching American satellites into orbit — and $11.8 billion with NASA.

The Journal reported that in late 2023, Musk received his first request from the Kremlin to refrain from activating Starlink over Taiwan. The outlet cited a former Russian intelligence officer, whom it did not name.

The report also said that the request was made for Beijing’s sake, as Moscow increasingly relied on trade from China.

Based on The Journal’s findings, it’s unclear exactly how many times Putin or his administration asked Musk for the favor.

The Chinese embassy in Washington told The Journal that it was not aware of the specifics of this arrangement, and did not respond to a separate request for comment sent outside regular business hours by B-17.

Taiwan does not have official Starlink access because its laws require satellite services to be provided through a joint venture with a local operator that maintains majority ownership. The New York Times reported that SpaceX was unwilling to accept such an arrangement, and the self-governed island is thus creating its own low-earth orbit satellite network.

Musk’s reported conversations with Putin coincide with his apparent shift in rhetoric toward Ukraine in late 2022. Until that point, the billionaire had vocally supported Kyiv, providing it with 15,000 Starlink terminals.

By October of that year, he began seeking funding from the Pentagon to continue the free services, tweeting that they were taking a financial toll.

Musk also tweeted a poll that month about a peace plan reflecting some of Russia’s war demands at the time, including Russia’s formal obtaining of Crimea and a guarantee of Ukraine’s neutrality.

The billionaire’s post drew the fury of pro-Ukrainian accounts, but he added that he only suggested those measures to avoid further death in Ukraine and the risk of nuclear war.

“Obviously, we are pro-Ukraine,” he tweeted, saying that SpaceX had spent about $80 million on free Starlink for Ukraine.

Two weeks later, Ian Bremmer, a political scientist who founded Eurasia Group, wrote in an email to his subscribers that Musk had spoken with Putin before tweeting this controversial peace plan.

Per Bremmer, Putin had told Musk that if he could not accomplish his goals in Ukraine, he would turn to “major escalation.”

Musk and the Kremlin said Bremmer’s report was untrue. “I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago,” Musk tweeted. “The subject matter was space.”

By Musk’s account, this conversation with Putin would have taken place in April 2021, before the Russian invasion began.

In a statement to The Journal, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, referred to that call as the only time that Putin’s office was in contact with Musk.

Putin and Musk had discussed “space as well as current future technologies,” Peskov said.

The Kremlin’s office did not respond to a separate request for comment sent outside regular business hours by B-17. Musk, SpaceX, the Pentagon, and NASA also did not respond to similar comment requests.

It’s unclear if Musk’s reported conversations with Putin will impact his public relationship with former President Donald Trump, whom the SpaceX CEO has publicly endorsed.

In a statement to B-17, Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, said Musk is a “once-in-a-generation industry leader and our broken federal bureaucracy could certainly benefit from his ideas and efficiency.”

“As for Putin, there’s only one candidate in the race that he did not invade another country under, and it’s President Trump,” Leavitt said. “President Trump has long said that he will re-establish his peace through strength foreign policy to deter Russia’s aggression and end the war in Ukraine.”

As election day draws near, Musk has actively campaigned for the Republican candidate and contributed at least $75 million to a super PAC supporting the latter.

Trump has frequently said that, if he is reelected, he would push Ukraine and Russia to strike a deal to end the war swiftly.