SpaceX founder Elon Musk regularly consulted with the Russian authorities after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, and in the fall of 2022 he spoke personally with Vladimir Putin.
Source. The New Yorker magazine writes about this with reference to the Deputy Chairman of the Pentagon Colin Kahl.
This is due to the fact that Musk decided to provide the Ukrainian military with Starlink terminals for satellite communications.
Kyiv decided to turn to SpaceX when Russia conducted cyberattacks on Ukraine's digital infrastructure after the military invasion. The Ukrainian leadership planned to create a network of terminals that would be difficult for Russia to completely destroy.
Three of The New Yorker's sources who were involved in the supply of Starlink systems to Ukraine said that at first no one thought about how much Musk was personally involved in this process: the billionaire supported the supply of terminals to the Armed Forces.
However, by the fall of 2022, Musk began to express concerns about the use of Starlink in the war, and said he would not be able to continuously finance the supply at his own expense.
Subsequently, the Ukrainian military began to complain about periodic communication outages on the front lines.
In the fall of 2022, at a conference in Aspen attended by businessmen and politicians, Musk even expressed support for Vladimir Putin. He said on stage:
"We have to negotiate. Putin wants peace – we have to negotiate peace with Putin," recalled Reed Hoffman, who worked with Musk at PayPal.
The Pentagon decided to sign a contract with SpaceX so that, as Kahl said, "Musk couldn't just stop his support." In October, Kahl called him.
The businessman did not immediately agree to the terms of the American government.
"I think he started to get nervous because Starlink's involvement was increasingly associated in Russia with supporting the actions of the Ukrainian military," Kal said.
During the call, Musk said that he had personally spoken with Putin. Another source emphasized that Musk had reported speaking with the Russian dictator a few weeks before the publication of his "peace plan" on Twitter.
This source clarified that Musk's consultations with the Kremlin were regular.
The conversation between Musk and Putin in October 2022 was reported by Vice, citing economist Ian Bremmer. However, Musk denied that he had spoken to the Russian president: "No. I spoke with Putin only once, and it was about 18 months ago. The topic was space," the businessman said.