Elon Musk denies report he spoke with Putin before peace tweets

Musk said in a tweet on Oct 11 that he didn’t speak with Putin about the war, adding that such a call would be ‘pointless, as there is currently no overlap between Russian and Ukrainian demands – it’s not even close’. — AFP

Both the Kremlin and Elon Musk denied a report that said the billionaire spoke directly with Vladimir Putin about Ukraine.

Ian Bremmer, head of political-risk consultancy Eurasia Group, wrote in a note to clients on Monday that Musk told him about recently speaking with the Russian president. Bremmer said that conversation came before a series of Musk tweets urging Ukraine to seek a negotiated solution to the invasion by Russia and to cede Crimea for good.

Musk said in a tweet on Oct 11 that he didn’t speak with Putin about the war, adding that such a call would be “pointless, as there is currently no overlap between Russian and Ukrainian demands – it’s not even close”.

Bremmer responded on Twitter a few hours later that Musk told him he spoke with Putin.

“I write honestly without fear or favor and this week’s update was no different,” Bremmer said. “I’ve long admired Musk as a unique and world-changing entrepreneur, which I’ve said publicly. He’s not a geopolitics expert.”

Minutes later, Musk responded: “Nobody should trust Bremmer.”

Asked Wednesday about the report of a conversation before Musk’s recent tweets urging a settlement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called it “untrue”. He said Putin had spoken by phone with Musk about a year and a half ago, but declined to comment on the subject matter. Musk has said he discussed space issues in that call.

Eurasia Group’s weekly note authored by Bremmer is distributed to thousands of individual and corporate clients, including macro hedge funds, family offices and global corporations. The firm dispenses political-risk analysis gathered by a global network of consultants.

In his most recent note, Bremmer said Musk had told him about two weeks earlier that he’d discussed with Putin the president’s minimum requirements for ending the war. Those conditions, which mirrored the proposals Musk put forward in his tweets on Oct 3, included Ukraine ceding Crimea, which Putin seized in 2014, accepting a formal state of neutrality and recognising Russia’s annexation of the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.

The parameters are in line with what Russia has repeatedly said are some of its demands for ending the invasion, which began in February.

Musk’s Ukraine tweets are what prompted Bremmer to come forward, he said in his note.

“I wasn’t planning on writing about this,” he wrote. But “it feels important to write about what’s happening.”

Bremmer didn’t respond to a request for comment. A Eurasia Group spokesman declined to elaborate beyond the note. – Bloomberg