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Elon Musk reportedly met with Putin before tweeting a controversial poll on the Ukraine war.
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Putin told Musk he was “prepared to negotiate” if certain conditions were met, according to Ian Bremmer.
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Musk denied that he met with Putin before tweeting the poll.
Before tweeting a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine that parroted Russian demands, Elon Musk reportedly spoke privately with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a leading political analyst.
Eurasia Group founder and president Ian Bremmer in a Monday email to his organization’s subscribers said that he spoke with Musk two weeks ago. At the time, Musk told Bremmer that Putin explicitly told him that he was “prepared to negotiate” under the conditions that Crimea remains under Russian control, that Ukraine remained neutral, and that Russia’s annexations of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia were enforced.
According to Bremmer, Putin told Musk that these were goals he’d accomplish “no matter what,” or else he would turn to “major escalation.”
Bremmer also said that Musk told him Putin said if Zelenskyy “invaded Crimea, Russia would retaliate with a nuclear strike on Ukraine,” adding, “Elon said everything needed to be done to avoid that outcome.”
Musk, however, denies that he spoke with Putin recently.
Last week, Musk shared a public poll pitching a plan to stop the war. Musk’s proposal heavily favored Kremlin positions and his comments echoed Kremlin talking points, for which he was widely accused of amplifying Russian propaganda.
Putin has repeatedly and falsely claimed that Ukraine is not a real country, and has referred to Ukrainians and Russians as “one people.” The Russian leader has employed a distorted view of history as one of many justifications for Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine; Russia seized the Crimea peninsula, a key military base with direct Black Sea access, by force in 2014 and used that region earlier this year to invade Ukraine from the south.
The billionaire was harshly criticized for the tweet, including by Ukrainian officials and diplomats.
Musk has been outspoken about his increasing worries that the Ukraine-Russia conflict could escalate to nuclear levels, as Putin recently warned, and he has a front-row seat as the SpaceX CEO, which operates the Starlink satellite network that Ukraine is reliant on to link its forces and target Russian positions.
Elon Musk did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment to confirm he met with Putin. But Musk in a tweet denied that he had spoken to Putin before tweeting the poll.
“I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space,” Musk said.
Read the original article on Business Insider
