Elon Musk denies having spoken to Vladimir Putin, says met Russian president once
- An American political scientist claimed Musk spoke to Putin before putting out his peace plan
- Senior Ukraine government officials also slammed Musk
- Elon Musk has denied having spoken to Putin before he tweeted his peace plan
Elon Musk,
Tesla CEO and world’s richest man, denied American political scientist Ian
Bremmer’s claim that Musk had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin before
pitching his Ukraine-Russia peace plan. Asked on Twitter if Bremmer’s comments
were true, Musk wrote: “No, it is not. I have spoken to Putin only once and
that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space.”
Bremmer,
president and founder of Euroasian Group, a political risk research and
consultancy firm, sent out a communique to clients saying the Tesla CEO spoke
to Vladimir Putin about “the minimum the Russian President would require to end
the war.” On Tuesday, Bremmer wrote on Twitter, “Elon Musk told me he had
spoken with Putin and the Kremlin directly about Ukraine. He also told me what
the Kremlin’s red lines were.”
Also Read | How Elon Musk plans to finance his Twitter acquisition
On October
3, Musk posted a series of tweets proposing solutions to the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
He proposed that the United Nations oversee a referendum in the regions where
Russia conducted referendums recently to vet what the people living in those
regions feel. Further, the world’s wealthiest man also made the comment that
Ukraine should hand Crimea over to Russia and that the nation should then
remain neutral instead of aligning with NATO or Russia.
Musk has
also suggested on Twitter, the social media platform he might soon acquire,
that some Ukraine citizens would prefer to, and vote to, join Russia.
Elon Musk’s
comments have found favour in the Kremlin, but the Western bloc has denounced
him, including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Musk was viewed kindly by
Ukraine because his company SpaceX enabled Starlink satellite internet service
to keep parts of the country online in the initial days of the conflict.
But his
comment on the peace process has riled up many. On Musk’s tweets, Andrij Melnyk,
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany wrote: “F*** off is my very diplomatic reply to
you.”
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