BREMEN, Germany — Two key senators are asking the Department of Justice and the Defense Department to investigate alleged calls between SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
In a pair of letters dated Nov. 15, Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) raised concerns about risks to national security about the calls, reported Oct. 25 by the Wall Street Journal, between Musk and Putin over the last two years.
“These relationships between a well-known U.S. adversary and Mr. Musk, a beneficiary of billions of dollars in U.S. government funding, pose serious questions regarding Mr. Musk’s reliability as a government contractor and a clearance holder,” they wrote in one letter, to the inspector general of the Defense Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland, referencing Musk’s own statements that he holds a top secret clearance.
Such an investigation is warranted, they said, “to determine whether this behavior should force a review of Mr. Musk’s continued involvement in SpaceX’s varying contracts with the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community.”
It is unclear if the Pentagon and the Justice Department will act on the request. Garland will leave office no later than Jan. 20 at the end of the Biden administration, and the incoming Trump administration may be less willing to pursue such claims.
A second letter, to Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, raised concerns about relying on SpaceX for space access and communications. That extended beyond the reports of the Musk-Putin calls to dependence on the company as a sole supplier of some capabilities.
“We are also concerned that SpaceX’s Starlink is the only commercial service available to offer global broadband connectivity in low-Earth orbit,” the senators wrote. “A robust and competitive space industrial base with multiple providers is the only way the Department can ensure there are options to maintain access to this critical capability in the event of a crisis or conflict.”
Reed and Shaheen asked Kendall to provide a briefing on this particular case “and on your efforts to increase competition among commercial space capability providers” no later than Dec. 1.
While some claim that SpaceX has a monopoly on areas like launch, the company argues that it is simply executing where others are not. “It’s not a planned monopoly if our competitors could get it together,” Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX, said Nov. 15 at the 31st Annual Baron Investment Conference.
“We have $22 billion worth of government contracts. We earned that. We bid it. We were the lowest price, best bidder. We won, and we execute,” she said. “It’s not a bad thing to serve the U.S. government with great capability and products.”
Reed is the current chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, while Shaheen serves on that committee and also chairs the commerce, justice and science subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which funds NASA.
NASA was not included in the letters, and its reliance on SpaceX did not come up. However, the day of the Wall Street Journal report, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson expressed his concerns about the potential conversations.
“I think it should be investigated,” he said at a Semafor conference. “If the story is true that there have been multiple conversations between Elon Musk and the president of Russia, then I think that would be concerning, particularly for NASA, for the Department of Defense, for some of the intelligence agencies.”
Shotwell, at the investment conference, was not asked and did not discuss the alleged calls between Putin and Musk. “Our relationship with NASA is really extraordinary,” she said.