Democratic senators have asked the Pentagon to look into billionaire Elon Musk’s reported calls with Russian officials including President Vladimir Putin.
In a letter, two senior Democratic senators said that the the Pentagon and law-enforcement agencies investigate these calls on national-security grounds.
Republican President-elect Donald Trump has entrusted Elon Musk with a senior government role.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a senior Foreign Relations Committee member, and Senate Armed Services Committee chair Jack Reed told U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Pentagon’s inspector general that Musk’s involvement in those SpaceX programmes be probed.
They said that such relationships between a well-known U.S. adversary and Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. government funding, pose serious questions.
Several Democratic lawmakers have publicly called for a probe into Musk’s communications with Moscow.
A report in the Wall Street Journal last month referred to the alleged contact.
The letter to the U.S. officials who could launch such an investigation has not been previously reported.
The call by Shaheen and Reed for a federal probe is a longshot effort as Trump prepares to return to the White House with backing from Musk.
Musk spent over $119 million on Trump’s reelection campaign and was appointed co-head of the president-elect’s forthcoming Department of Government Efficiency.
SpaceX, Musk and the Pentagon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Pentagon and Justice Department did not immediately respond to similar requests.
Reports of Musk’s contact with Russian officials emerged in 2022.
At that time, political scientist Ian Bremmer, president of consulting firm Eurasia Group, said that Musk told him that he had spoken with Putin.
Bremmer said that Musk had spoken with the Russian President about the Ukraine war and Russia’s red line for using nuclear weapons.
Musk denied Bremmer’s claim and said he had only spoken to Putin 18 months earlier, about space.
Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported on Musk’s multiple conversations with Russian officials including Putin and his first deputy chief of staff Sergei Kiriyenko.
Shaheen and Reed said in the letter it was “deeply concerning” that Musk reportedly had conversations with Kiriyenko.
He was charged this year with other Russian officials by the U.S. Justice Department for spearheading an AI-powered propaganda campaign on Musk’s social-media platform X and other sites.
The propaganda aimed to promote Russian interests and influence voters ahead of the U.S. presidential election.
Musk has publicly claimed he holds a U.S. security clearance.
This clearance gives Musk access to secret information at SpaceX, which holds billions of dollars in Pentagon and NASA launch contracts.
The company also has a $1.8-billion intelligence-community contract to build a vast spy satellite network, Reuters has reported.
“Communications between Russian government officials and any individual with a security clearance have the potential to put our security at risk,” the lawmakers said in the letter.
Tensions between the U.S. and Russia in space have spiked since Russia’s 2022 Ukraine invasion.
Musk’s SpaceX has come to dominate the U.S. space industry and is relied on heavily by NASA and the Pentagon.
The company’s Starlink internet network of nearly 7,000 satellites has made SpaceX the world’s largest satellite operator and a disruptive force in the satellite internetsector, with heavy interest from the Pentagon for military communications.
Ukraine’s military relies heavily on Starlink for battlefield connectivity
The senators sent a separate letter on Friday to U.S. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall.
They said that Musk’s reported conversations raise the need for more competition in the launch and satellite communications industries.
