Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who is now central to Donald Trump’s election campaign, has been in regular contact with Vladimir Putin for the past two years, according to a report in the US.
The Wall Street Journal, citing several in-post and former US, European and Russian officials, reported that the conversations between the two men ranged from the personal to the geopolitical and included a request from the Russian leader not to activate his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favour to the Chinese leader and Putin ally, Xi Jinping.
Isn’t this espionage/treason? He has security clearance, he should not have contact with foreign government officials or sabotage our allies.
Absolutely, but he’s rich so it’s okay.
Rich and a Republican
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Removed, advocating violence. Lemmy.world can’t afford to get on a list. :)
Absolutely fair. Bad mood.
Removed, advocating violence. Plus, isn’t Musk still a foreign national? Not sure how “Treason” applies to non-Americans.
You’re kidding me… I was discussing whether his actions meet the definition of a crime and therefore whether the established legal punishment would be appropriate. As others have commented he IS an American citizen (from 2002) and there’s no question of jurisdiction here. Although treason is a very high bar (despite mounting evidence) and it is much more likely that he could be got for sedition under the Smith Act or something.
I disagree with your decision. I think your effort would be better spent focusing on the folks actually advocating for vigilantism.
He is and he isn’t. He’s a citizen of South Africa, Canada, and the USA.
Also a potential breach of ITAR.
Now there’s an immigrant destroying the country
Someone remind me what happened involving Musk almost exactly two years ago… I’m pretty sure something relevant happened on October 28, 2022… I remember a little bird chirping in my ear…
And, I even wonder if anyone would be surprised by this news.
Clue please?
I gave clues, but…
So combined with his interjection into politics, wouldn’t this be two serious crimes he’s committed?
Yeah, but he has a lot of money so it is fine.
Everything is fine.
Oh, for us?
No no. We’re fucked.
what does the word crime even mean anymore
It’s when poor people do something the wealthy don’t like.
A billionaire might have done something illegal and possibly treasonous?
I wonder if anyone will follow through on this.
I’m sure Trump will follow through with a pardon as he hands the US to Russia
The republicans tried, but you can’t become president if you were born a South African
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Never fucking happen
Wouldn’t surprise me if Putin is deploying underage honey-trapping on these guys like Trump/Elon/Tucker/etc., covertly filming it, and then blackmail owning them thereafter.
He doesn’t have to. They all envy his position of power ( dictatorship).
I also assume something like this. Seems like Putin has has had kompromat on Trump since the 90s.
I think Putin might just be the big head, then Elon, then Trump
While I agree, I also feel it’s deserving to have little vladdy as the smallest doll in the Russian doll set.
No, it’s who’s working for who. I read it as putin is the rotten core of it all.
Well we can all agree that Trump is a puppet
Wouldn’t this be a violation of the Logan Act?
Apparently, in the 21st century, you can violate the Logan Act as much as you like.
When you run starlink they let you do it. You can do anything.
Is t there a law that says private citizens shouldn’t be representing the US with foreign leaders?
Why yes there is, from the 19th century. But it’s not about abortion, so surely is unenforceable.
If he wasn’t the richest being in the known universe, he’d be fighting an indictment right now.
Implications for the ongoing election as well as the war in Ukraine. Starlink comms likely provide important intelligence that Putin could use.
Of all the reasons I’d put that dipshit on blast. This one is just silly. Probably true. Not denying that. Its just stupid. That he, wildly overinflated dumbass of an ego constantly high on his own farts, thought his in-house security was better than the INFOSEC nerds at Langley.
Worse than that. It wont matter. This is America. The amount of money the fuckwit has means he’s quite literally untouchable. Because this is the bad place. We live in hell.
Pretty sure I died in 2016 or maybe it was 2020. Either way you might be right
Destroy the American traitors propping up Putin to dispel the invasion of Ukraine and score a victory for the planet.
Just two years; I don’t buy it for a second.
He’s been in deep since well before he purchased twitter.
What do you want to bet the NSA has recordings of Musk’s phone calls? Probably the only thing preventing the feds from using these recordings would be they would have to let on they have this capability.
