NASA Chief: Elon Musk ‘Should Be Investigated’ for Putin Connection

According to the report, current and former American, European, and Russian officials confirmed the relationship between the billionaire business mogul and Kremlin leader, which they say began in late 2022 and has continued into this year.

SpaceX, which Nelson said has been “phenomenally successful,” is arguably NASA’s most important commercial partner. The company routinely flies astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and is developing a lunar lander to put Americans on the moon as soon as 2026. It has received billions of dollars worth of contracts from U.S. government agencies, creating a potential dilemma for NASA and others.

“I don’t know that that story is true,” Nelson said Friday, speaking at Semafor’s World Economy Summit in Washington, D.C. “If the story is true, and 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.”

SpaceX is the recipient of several high-value government contracts and is the primary rocket launch partner for both NASA and the Pentagon.

On Friday, for example, the company completed its eighth NASA Commercial Crew astronaut rotation mission to the ISS under an agreement worth nearly $5 billion, with the potential for more missions to be added to that contract.

The space agency has awarded SpaceX multiple contracts under the Artemis moon mission program worth north of $4 billion. The firm will build a human landing system (HLS) variant of its powerful Starship rocket to land astronauts at the lunar south pole during Artemis III, scheduled for 2026. It will perform a second crewed moon landing for Artemis IV in 2027.

In June, NASA handed it another contract worth up to $843 million to deorbit and destroy the ISS at the end of the decade.

The Pentagon’s National Security Space Launch (NSSL) program, meanwhile, has tapped SpaceX, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance to compete for launch contracts valued at $5.6 billion, adding to previous SpaceX arrangements worth $2.5 billion. And earlier this year, it was reported that the company won a $1.8 billion National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) contract to build a spy satellite network.

Suffice it to say that the U.S. government relies heavily on SpaceX. Nelson on Friday said NASA works primarily with Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX's president and chief operating officer, rather than Musk and that Musk “leaves it to her to run SpaceX.” However, the alleged connection between Musk and Putin raises concerns about outside influence over the company.

Per the Journal, Musk’s government ties give him security clearance with access to sensitive information. Sources said the Kremlin in recent years has applied pressure on the billionaire entrepreneur’s businesses and issued “implicit threats.”  In Ukraine, for example, Putin decried Musk’s move to supply forces with a Starlink internet connection. And according to the report, the Kremlin asked Musk to refrain from turning on Starlink in Taiwan as a favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

A Kremlin spokesperson told the Journal that Putin and Musk made a single phone call to discuss “space as well as current and future technologies.”

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