The head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on Friday said a report that billionaire space scion and fomer President Donald Trump backer Elon Musk has been in regular contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin should be investigated — and if it’s true, “would be concerning” for a host of U.S. agencies.
“I don’t know that that story is true. I think it should be investigated,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who previously served as a Democratic Florida senator, said at Semafor’s World Economy Summit. “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 was referring to a Wall Street Journal report published late Thursday that Elon Musk — the world’s richest person and one of Trump’s most high-profile and wealthy backers — has been in regular contact with the Russian president since 2022.
Musk’s company, SpaceX, has multiple contracts with NASA. On Friday morning, a crew of NASA astronauts returned to Earth from the International Space Station using one of the company’s Dragon capsules.
Nelson said the agency’s dealings with SpaceX “are primarily” through its president and COO, Gwynne Shotwell, and that the company has been “phenomenally successful.”