"I had a great conversation with Putin"

Ilon Musk told Pentagon officials how he talked with the President of Russia (and probably more than once)

The founder of SpaceX and the owner of Twitter, Ilon Musk, told the Pentagon to the representatives of the Pentagon that he personally spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This is stated in the material of The New Yorker about a businessman. In particular, Musk mentioned his contacts with Putin during a telephone conversation in October 2022 with Colin Kale, who then held the post of Deputy Minister of Defense of the United States.

The conversation of Kalya and the mask took place after the Ukrainian military encountered the disconnection of the connection that SpaceX Starlink terminals provided. Starlink was deployed in Ukraine shortly after the beginning of a full -scale Russian invasion. The use of the network is partially paid by the Western countries and the SpaceX company itself.

Ukrainian officials decided to use the Starlink terminals after the Kremlin’s cyber attacks for the infrastructure of Ukraine, writes The New Yorker. According to three people who participated in the attraction of Starlink to Ukraine, at first they did not think about the degree of personal control of a mask for satellite connection. “Then no one thought about it. All this looked like this: “Let's Damn it, already move, people are dying,” said one of the interlocutors.

According to The New Yorker, by the fall of 2022 the mask was increasingly disturbing the fact that its technology was used for the war. In September, at a conference in the city of Aspen, Colorado, Musk, "it seemed even to express his support to Vladimir Putin." “He was on the stage and said:“ We must negotiate. Putin wants peace - we must negotiate peace with Putin, ”the founder of the Linkedin social network, Rid Hoffman, quoted the mask attending the event. A week later, Musk published on Twitter his version of the “Peace Plan” , which suggested that Crimea remains under the control of Russia, and a new vote is undergoing in the occupied territories of Ukraine.

In October, Ukrainian troops, leading hostilities in the south of the country, were faced with a loss of communication. “We were very close to the front line. We crossed this border, and Starlink stopped working. The connection was interrupted, the units were isolated. When you hold an offensive, you, especially the commanders, constantly need information from the battalions. The commanders, risking themselves, had to go on the battlefield to be in the radio communications zone. It was chaos, ”one of the Ukrainian troops told the publication.

A senior representative of the US Department of Defense said that the department held several meetings, trying to understand how to solve the problem. It turned out to be atypical, since the ministry could not file a mask of complaints, for example, in violation of the contract. Therefore, the Pentagon decided to conclude a contract with SpaceX so that Musk "could not wake up one morning and just decide that he no longer wants to do this."

As a rule, the New Yorker notes, the Pentagon procurement department is engaged in such negotiations, but Musk has become more than just a seller - such as Boeing. Therefore, talking with him on the phone, Deputy Minister of Defense Colin Kal “was respectful”, thanked the mask for his support for Ukraine, recognized the high costs that he incurred, and asked to give at least a few weeks to develop a contract.

“I concluded that he [Musk] began to be nervous due to the fact that the participation of Starlink was increasingly considered in Russia as assistance to the Ukrainian military, and was looking for a way to relieve the concern of Russia,” Kala noted.

To the horror of Pentagon officials, notes The New Yorker, Musk said he personally talked with Putin. According to one of the interlocutors of the publication, the businessman made the same statement a few weeks before he published his “peace plan” on Twitter. He said that his consultations with the Kremlin were regular. After the mask with Putin was informed about the alleged conversation by the Vice publication in October 2022, the businessman wrote on Twitter that he spoke with Putin once and that was 18 months ago, that is, before the Russian invasion.

In a telephone conversation with a high -ranking Pentagon representative, Musk said that he looked into his computer and could see the entire unfolding war through the Starlink Activity map. “It was about three minutes before he said:“ I had a great conversation with Putin, ”the Pentagon representative told the publication. Mask told Kali that he was forced to think about what the technology that he developed for peaceful purposes is used for warfare.

After a 15-minute conversation with the Deputy Minister of Defense, Musk agreed to give the Pentagon more time. When a public reaction followed, he alsoabandoned his threats to stop servicing Starlink. “The devil with him ... although Starlink is still losing money, and other companies receive billions of dollars from taxpayers, we will continue to finance the Ukrainian government for free,” the businessman said. In early June 2023, it became known that the Pentagon entered into a contract with SpaceX on procurement for Ukraine Terminals of the Starlink satellite communication system and to ensure their work.