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Trump’s new ‘star’ Elon Musk joins his first call with Ukrainian president. Why it matters

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Trump’s new ‘star’ Elon Musk joins his first call with Ukrainian president. Why it matters

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WASHINGTON − Tech billionaire Elon Musk joined the first phone call between President-elect Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy since Trump’s election on Tuesday, media outlets reported, raising questions about his potentially outsized role in the upcoming administration.

A spokesperson for Zelenskyy described the call as a positive one based on comments from both Trump and Musk, without going into specifics, according to Axios, which on Friday first reported Musk’s participation.

Zelenskyy, in a post on X, said Wednesday he had an “excellent call” with Trump and “congratulated him on his historic landslide victory.” Musk’s participation went unmentioned.

Musk’s appearance on the call wasn’t coordinated, but he happened to walk into the room right as Trump and Zelensky were speaking and the president-elect put him on the phone, the Wall Street Journal reported. 

Much of Ukraine’s communications take place over Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service since Russia’s 2022 invasion brought down a significant portion of the country’s mobile phone network. Zelenskyy noted that he was using Starlink for the Trump call, and Musk replied he would send Ukraine more Starlink base stations, the Journal reported.

Musk did not immediately respond a request for comment. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung and a spokesman for Zelenskyy also did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

In Musk, ‘a star is born,’ Trump says

It is extremely unusual for a private citizen like Musk – or any third party at all – to join in calls between world leaders, especially initial ones after an election.

But as Trump has made clear, the South Africa-born Musk will have a prominent role in his administration. “A star is born,” Trump said in his victory speech early Wednesday, referring to Musk, who poured more than $100 million into helping Trump win.

That could cause potential conflicts of interest given all of the federal agencies that oversee Musk’s various companies, which have received at least $15.4 billion in federal government contracts over the past decade, according to Open Secrets.

SpaceX, for instance, is a linchpin in the U.S. space effort, as well as Musk’s plan to use his Starship spacecraft to transport humans to Mars as part of his oft-stated goal of making “life multiplanetary.”

Some experts suggested Musk’s joining the Trump-Zelenskyy call might indicate the influence he could have in the new Trump administration, especially given his increasing closeness to Trump – and his financial and personal support of Trump’s campaign.

Susan Glasser, a former Moscow correspondent and co-author of the book “Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of Revolution,” described the news as a sign of the influence Musk will wield in the new Trump administration.

“Wow,” Glasser said in a post on X. “A preview of what happens when the world’s richest man is also chief shareholder in the US presidency.”

More: Musk’s ‘golden ticket’: Trump win could hand Tesla billionaire unprecedented power

Zelenskyy ‘somewhat reassured’ by the call

Axios characterized the Trump call as lasting about 25 minutes and said Zelenskyy was “somewhat reassured” by it. For the past year while campaigning, Trump has been saying he would end Russia’s war in Ukraine if elected – and suggested he would push for a decrease – if not a cutoff – of U.S. aid to the embattled Kyiv government.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated Trump on his election victory, and reportedly has said he will pick up if Trump calls.

The disclosure of Musk joining the Zelenksyy call is politically awkward for a number of reasons.

One is that Musk has billions of dollars in sensitive U.S. military and intelligence contracts − some involving Ukraine and its war with Russia. He almost certainly has a top-secret security clearance needed to be involved in them, as he has claimed.

But under Musk, SpaceX “has taken unpredictable actions that could impact geopolitical events, raising national security concerns that a key defense contractor could be manipulated by the impulses of its leadership,” Douglas Yeung, a senior behavioral scientist at RAND, wrote in a recent opinion piece for USA TODAY.

For example, Yeung said, SpaceX initially made its Starlink communications available to Ukrainian forces fighting Russia but later sought to deny them access ‒ with Musk first demanding the Pentagon foot the bill and later claiming that restoring functionality might escalate the conflict into a world war.

Musk’s reported ties to Vladimir Putin raise concerns

Further complicating the matter: The Wall Street Journal reported on Oct. 25 that Musk “has been in regular contact” with Putin since late 2022.

Those discussions, which the Journal said were confirmed by several current and former U.S., European and Russian officials, touched on personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions. Musk has not responded to requests for comment and confirmation about those calls and their nature, including from USA TODAY.

But those reported discussions came as U.S. intelligence agencies have said Putin was aggressively using his cyberwarriors to spread disinformation to help elect Trump. Those have included creating and disseminating fake videos smearing his Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor.

Much of that content was circulated on X − which Musk, the richest man in the world, purchased in 2022 for $44 billion − at the same time that Musk himself was personally boosting pro-Trump content and spreading election disinformation and attacks on Harris while attending campaign rallies with Trump.

The disclosure of Musk’s relationship with Putin raised questions among some U.S. lawmakers and national security leaders, including Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee.

“My job is to do oversight of the intelligence community and the counter-intelligence arm of the FBI, so yes, I’m going to absolutely ask what they know and is this of concern,” Himes told USA TODAY in an interview before Trump’s victory.

Himes said he planned to get staff inquiries going and ask for briefings by top U.S. intelligence officials on what they know about Musk’s relationship with Putin and how it affects his many U.S. national security contracts.

“Quite apart from how you might think about his security clearance, policy makers might give some thought as to whether he should be even more deeply embedded in our national security apparatus,” Himes said of Musk, whose government contracts have been growing by the year.

‘I think it should be investigated,’ NASA leader says of Musk-Putin relationship

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a former U.S. senator, also has concerns including about Musk’s reported discussions with Putin.

Those discussions, the Wall Street Journal reported, included Putin’s request that Musk avoid activating his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. 

“I don’t know that that story is true. I think it should be investigated,” Nelson said recently at a Semafor conference in Washington, D.C. “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.”

On Friday, a spokesperson for Nelson said he had no further comment.

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