Federal Agencies Secretly Tracked Elon Musk’s Foreign Friends
Multiple agencies, and the FBI, were involved in the probe.
Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Government agencies tracked foreign nationals visiting Elon Musk’s properties over fears they could influence the tech billionaire, an explosive report revealed Tuesday.
The investigation, launched during the Biden administration, involved multiple agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, with work carried out at least between 2022 and 2023, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Musk’s close ties with foreign nationals—which has included a period of frequent talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin—raised growing concerns given Musk’s control over his influential tech companies.
This includes SpaceX, which holds lucrative national security contracts and access to highly classified government information.
Although the probe did not lead to any charges, the FBI was briefed on it. It remains unclear whether the investigation into Musk’s foreign visitors has continued under the Trump administration.
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The FBI, SpaceX, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment from the Daily Beast.
Elon Musk's work as SpaceX CEO grants him a high-level security clearance.
Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Staff on Musk’s America super PAC, created to support President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, also expressed concern about the number of foreign nationals Musk regularly met with and who joined him at meetings and events, The Journal reports.
One official at Musk’s America PAC said the team had to enforce a strict vetting process to prevent foreign interference in its efforts. Two Trump campaign staffers shared similar worries about Musk’s foreign contacts.
Following his outsized role in Trump’s reelection bid—and the $250 million he pumped into it—Musk was rewarded with a White House role overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency.
He quickly became one of Trump’s most influential allies during the Republican’s second term, before their relationship spectacularly exploded in a series of social media attacks last Thursday.
Elon Musk became a fan boy of Donald Trump during the two-year period he was in frequent conversations with Vladimir Putin.
Gavriil Grigorov / POOL / AFP
Musk, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in South Africa, also held frequent conversations with Putin over a two-year span from late 2022 until just before Trump’s last election win.
Their talks covered a wide range of topics, including geopolitics, business, and personal matters. Putin even asked Musk, the world’s richest man, not to activate his Starlink satellite internet service over Taiwan as a favor to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
This week his semi-estranged father Errol Musk spoke at a meeting of the far-right in Moscow convened by a philosopher known as “Putin’s brain” who predicts that nuclear weapons will be used to end “Western liberalism.”
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