Concerning
NASA administrator Bill Nelson isn’t happy with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk after the Wall Street Journal reported that he has been in “regular contact” with Russian president Vladimir Putin for several years — even reportedly taking orders from the despot to prevent the activation of Starlink satellites over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Nelson told Semafor during Friday’s Semafor World Economy Summit that he thinks the story “should be investigated.”
“If its true there have been multiple conversations with Elon Musk and the president of Russia then that would be concerning particularly for NASA and the Department of Defense,” he added.
It’s a notable rebuke given SpaceX’s close ties to both the space agency and the Pentagon. The space company has launched plenty of national security satellites, while NASA has become reliant on its Crew Dragon spacecraft to reach the International Space Station.
Having the space company’s chief executive take orders or reveal potentially incriminating secrets to the head of the United States’ biggest adversary could have troubling implications — something that Nelson seems painfully aware of.
National Liability
Musk’s increasingly polarizing and problematic behavior has put the space agency in a difficult position.
For his part, Nelson has maintained that Musk’s antics haven’t been able to rock the boat too much, since in his estimation SpaceX’s president Gwynne Shotwell is the one truly in charge.
“The good news about that is that Elon has a president that he lets run the company,” he told Axios last month.
But now that he has reportedly been talking with Putin, Nelson has taken a different tune.
Musk has yet to respond to the claims. A Kremlin spokesperson told the newspaper that Musk and Putin had only met once to discuss “space as well as current and future technologies.”
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Musk at first seemed opposed to Putin’s land grab, aiding the Ukrainian side by sending thousands of Starlink broadband satellite terminals.
But then, as the WSJ reports, his tone changed considerably in late 2022, going as far as to suggest that Ukraine should give up parts of its territory to Russia to prevent a nuclear war.
Several years later, Musk has thrown his full weight behind the reelection of former president Donald Trump. The former reality TV host’s close relationship with Putin is well-established. Musk’s social media network X-formerly-Twitter also hosted a two-hour chat between conservative pundit Tucker Carlson and Putin.
In short, Musk’s ties with the US’ largest adversaries have clearly rattled NASA’s leadership.
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