Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Jack Reed from the U.S. Democratic Party called on the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice to investigate the contacts of billionaire Elon Musk with the russian authorities, in particular with president vladimir putin, Reuters reports.
The letter was sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch.
It notes that Musk handles billions of dollars in defense and intelligence community contracts as CEO of aerospace company SpaceX. In this regard, the senators fear that his contacts with putin may harm the country's security.
"These relationships between a well-known U.S. adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. government funding, pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk's reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder," the lawmakers stressed.
Shaheen and Reed intend to seek the removal of the businessman from participation in public procurement, if the suspicions are confirmed.
In October, sources among russian and Western officials told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that Musk had spoken repeatedly with putin and other senior officials in moscow over the past two years, including first deputy chief of staff of the presidential administration of russia Sergey Kiriyenko, who oversees operations in the hybrid war against the United States. According to the interlocutors of the publication, the billionaire and putin discussed personal topics, business and geopolitics.
The kremlin denied regular contacts between the head of state and Musk. The press secretary of the president, Dmytro Peskov, claimed that putin and the American billionaire called only once, before 2022 - the conversation "had an introductory nature" and its topic was "technological solutions for the future."
The kremlin called the WSJ publication "another throw-in" in the pre-election campaign. Musk himself accompanied the publication of his contacts with putin with two bold emoticons and noted that traditional American mass media have turned into mouthpieces of "leftist propaganda."
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