Updated 8 p.m. Eastern with SpaceX comment.
WASHINGTON — NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he is concerned about reports that Elon Musk, chief executive of SpaceX, has had discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Nelson’s comments, made at Semafor’s World Economy Summit Oct. 25, represent his strongest public criticism to date of the owner of the company that NASA relies upon for transporting crews to the International Space Station and for launching key missions.
In an on-stage interview at the summit, Nelson was asked about a Wall Street Journal article that stated that Musk has had a regular series of conversations with Putin over the last two years, starting after Putin embarked on a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The article said it confirmed those discussions with current and former American, European and Russian officials.
According to the article, the discussions between Musk and Putin included a request by Putin that SpaceX not activate its Starlink service over Taiwan, as Russia sought to win support from China. SpaceX does not provide Starlink service in Taiwan, but it is unclear if that request was a factor.
SpaceX, in a post on social media Oct. 25, called the article “incredibly misleading.” It noted that Taiwan has not given SpaceX a license to operate Starlink in the country and has not lifted foreign ownership limits there. “SpaceX has not accepted such a condition for any market in which it operates. This has nothing to do with Russia or China,” the company stated.
“I don’t know that that story is true,” Nelson said at the conference. “I think it should be investigated. 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.”
Nelson has avoided directly criticizing Musk even after the billionaire…
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