Musk’s reported contacts with Putin trigger anxiety in Washington

The House Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat called for an investigation Friday into a report that Elon Musk, the billionaire space tycoon who backs former President Donald Trump, has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“We should investigate what Elon Musk is up to to make sure that it is not to the detriment of the national security of the United States,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), said in an interview, joining a chorus of Democrats including the administrator of NASA who called for checking the report.

Elon Musk — the world’s richest person and one of Trump’s most high-profile and wealthy backers — has had previously unreported discussions with the Russian president since 2022, according to a Wall Street Journal report published late Thursday.

Smith stopped short of saying Musk should immediately lose the security clearance he holds through his role at SpaceX, arguing a probe is needed to determine if his alleged actions jeopardize U.S. interests. Smith said the Defense Department should look into the matter.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a senior member of Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Senate Armed Services Committee, also called for the Pentagon to investigate.

“Elon Musk—who has billions in contracts that support some of our most sensitive military operations—reportedly has an open line to Putin,” Shaheen said in a post. “In the interest of our national security, [the Defense Department] must investigate this and evaluate how it relies on commercial services like Musk’s.”

The House Foreign Affairs Committee’s ranking member Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) said the allegations of Musk’s contacts with Putin “raise many serious questions,” but he didn’t explicitly call for an investigation.

Earlier Friday, NASA chief Bill Nelson said the report, if it’s true, “would be concerning” for a host of U.S. agencies and that it should be verified.

“I don’t know that that story is true. I think it should be investigated,” said Nelson, who previously served as a Democratic Florida senator, at Semafor’s World Economy Summit. “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.”

Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, denied the report, saying Musk and the Kremlin had only had one phone call. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a statement, Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Musk as a “once-in-a-generation industry leader” and emphasized that Trump “will re-establish his peace through strength foreign policy to deter Russia’s aggression and end the war in Ukraine.”

The Defense Department did not immediately respond to questions.

Musk’s company, SpaceX, has multiple contracts with the Defense Department and NASA. On Friday morning, a crew of NASA astronauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station using one of the company’s Dragon capsules.

The mogul has poured nearly $120 million into his super PAC supporting Trump, and has quickly become one of the former president’s biggest backers. He has also courted controversy by spreading conspiracies on his social media platform X, including the false claim that Democrats are trying to steal the election through non-citizen voting. The DOJ warned Musk’s America PAC this week that his offer of million-dollar prizes to registered voters in swing states may violate federal law.

Trump has previously said that, if reelected, he would appoint Musk to lead an efficiency commission that could dramatically alter the federal government.

At the same time, Musk’s companies have deep ties to national security.

Musk offered his Starlink satellites to Ukraine at the onset of the war, but has since stopped funding them and restricted their use by the Ukrainian military. Earlier this year, Ukrainian military intelligence reports found that Starlink was being used by the Russian army.

Smith voiced concerns that Musk’s companies, including SpaceX and its subsidiary Starlink, play crucial roles in the nation’s defense and intelligence capabilities and called for greater diversity in the space launch industry to ensure national security.

Even without a “smoking gun” in any investigation into Musk’s alleged contacts with Putin, Smith said it “may be absolutely crucial to the national security interests of the United States” to have alternatives to Musk’s companies.

Trump himself has had a handful of phone calls with Putin since leaving office, according to a book released earlier this month by journalist Bob Woodward, and has called the Russian president “genius” and “savvy” for his invasion of Ukraine while suggesting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to blame for the war. Trump’s campaign has denied Woodward’s reporting.

Trump has pushed back on critics who say he “is in the pocket” of Russia, citing sanctions he approved on a Russian pipeline into Germany while he was president.

Smith called the apparent web of relationships and alleged communications between Musk, former President Donald Trump and Putin “troubling” and argued they pose a dire threat to U.S. interests and democratic values, especially if Trump were to regain the White House.

“There is a growing fascist movement across the world that Putin is the biggest exporter of, but China is right there with them,” Smith said. “There are a number of folks here domestically who are sympathetic to that worldview, that supposedly strong white men with a lot of money ought to rule the world and the rest of us should simply be forced to do whatever they dictate.”

Jessica Piper contributed to this report.