Elon Musk joined Trump-Zelensky call amid concerns for future of Ukraine war

By Tara John, Victoria Butenko and Nic Robertson, CNN

(CNN) — Tech tycoon Elon Musk joined a call between US President-elect Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the day after the presidential election, according to a source with knowledge of the situation.

The source spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the conversation.

Zelensky previously said on X that he called Trump on Wednesday and congratulated him on “his historic landslide” win. “We agreed to maintain close dialogue and advance our cooperation. Strong and unwavering US leadership is vital for the world and for a just peace,” Zelensky wrote at the time.

CNN is reaching out to Musk and Trump’s teams about the call, which was first reported by Axios.

Trump’s victory comes at a precarious moment in the conflict for Kyiv as Russia makes gains in the eastern Donbas region, which Russian President Vladimir Putin aims to capture in full.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump cast doubt on continued US commitment to Kyiv as the war drags on more than two and half years after Russian forces invaded. He has also made comments that suggest the US could pressure Ukraine into an uneasy truce with Russia.

Musk – whose pro-Trump super PAC spent more than $118 million in the 2024 campaign – has pitched himself to lead a broad effort to slash spending inside the federal government. He also has benefitted from billions of dollars worth of federal contracts, including from NASA, the military and other US government agencies.

The billionaire’s inclusion on Trump’s call with Zelensky raises questions about what his influence will look like in the incoming administration.

The military contractor

In Ukraine, Musk’s Starlink internet service has provided a significant frontline advantage to Ukraine’s smaller military since the 2022 invasion, permitting its forces to share real-time drone feeds between units, and communicate in areas where combat has disrupted cellphone service.

Starlink was a game changer for the country’s beleaguered frontline forces, endearing Musk to the Ukrainians at the time because his company SpaceX funded the service.

But that relationship soured as Musk complained about the cost of providing that service, and reports emerged that Starlink access was being restricted in areas like Russia-occupied Crimea. The Pentagon later announced in June 2023 that it would pay for Starlink in Ukraine.

Questions about Musk’s influence in the war also began to mount amid a rise in Ukrainian sightings of Russian uses of the satellite internet service.

A 2023 biography on Musk written by Walter Isaacson said the billionaire secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast in 2022 to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet.

Musk’s decision, which left Ukrainian officials begging him to turn the satellites back on, was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons – a fear driven home by Musk’s conversations with senior Russian officials, according to Isaacson.

Musk responded to the book excerpt on X, which he owns, by asserting that the Starlink service provided by his company SpaceX was never active over Crimea and that the Ukrainian government made an “emergency request” to him to turn on service.

There have also been concerns about Musk’s reported links with hostile foreign leaders.

Some US officials have raised counterintelligence concerns in the last year about Musk’s interactions with US adversaries like Russia, but the US intelligence community is wary of looking into those interactions because Musk is an American citizen, an official familiar with the matter previously told CNN.

A September Wall Street Journal report said the SpaceX founder and Russian President Vladimir Putin have been in “regular contact” since late 2022, saying they had discussed “personal topics, business and geopolitical tensions.”

It raised national security concerns as SpaceX’s relationships with NASA and the US military may have granted Musk access to sensitive government information and US intelligence.

Musk did not respond to the Journal’s requests for comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the newspaper that Musk and Putin have only had one telephone call in which they discussed “space as well as current and future technologies.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

CNN’s Shania Shelton, Jennifer Hansler, Josh Pennington and Sean Lyngaas contributed reporting.