Reports say Musk spoke to Putin before tweeting, Musk denies
Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group claims the world's richest man spoke with Russia's President before submitting his peace plan on Twitter.
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Elon Musk speaks at the SATELLITE Conference and Exhibition March 9, 2020, in Washington (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
Ian Bremmer, the head of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy group, claimed on Tuesday that Elon Musk spoke directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin before he tweeted his peace plan for Ukraine last week.
Bremmer says Elon Musk told him that the Russian president was only prepared to negotiate if Crimea remained Russian, if Ukraine committed to neutrality and if Ukraine recognized Russia's incorporation of Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporozhye.
The Eurasia Group's head further said that Putin told the Tesla CEO that these goals would be accomplished "no matter what", not excluding a possible nuclear strike if Ukraine attempted to invade Crimea.
Musk, however, commented today that he has only spoken with the Russian President once approximately 18 months ago by video conference, so it is not clear how Bremmer was told by Musk that he in fact did speak with Putin.
"No, it is not [true]. I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space."
Musk's peace plan tweet drew the ire of the Ukrainian ambassador to Berlin, who dropped an F-bomb on Musk, "in a very diplomatic way".
