Tycoons have gotten in trouble for running their own foreign policy before.
Elon Musk just vaulted himself into some troubling historical company.
A bombshell report from The Wall Street Journal Friday morning revealed that Musk has secretly been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin for the past two years.
Musk might pitch himself to Americans as an avatar of the future, electrifying the car industry and leading humans to a sci-fi future on Mars. But the way he relates to geopolitics has unsettling echoes in America’s past, putting him in the company of business figures whose international misadventures have almost always been a black mark on their historical records.
Seasoned diplomats and government watchdogs were aghast at the report of Musk’s relationship with Putin, especially given Musk’s possible appointment to an ambiguous-but-sweeping role in a second Trump administration.
It’s unavoidable for international business leaders to have contact with foreign leaders, said Richard Stengel, an undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs under President Barack Obama.
Musk’s relationship with a global pariah like Putin, however, carries another level of risk.
“This in particular is just much more sinister,” Stengel said. He called the report that Putin implored Musk not to activate Starlink service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping “really dicey business.”
(Neither SpaceX nor X returned a request for comment on the report, or on Musk’s relationship with Putin.)