Share He socializes with tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, dates supermodels and meets politicians like Giorgia Meloni for dinner. Elon Musk has friends all over the world. Russian President Vladimir Putin is rumored to be one of his good acquaintances. As the Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing American and Russian sources, Musk and Putin have been in regular contact for at least two years. During their phone calls, the two allegedly about everything from «personal issues» to business relationships and international politics. This close to the American presidential elections, the report has caused a stir. This is because Musk supports Donald Trump's candidacy and, if Trump wins, is expected to join the government. Musk's alleged contact with Putin is also controversial in geopolitical terms. The richest person in the world has long been a player of global significance. This is demonstrated by a look at his best-known companies: Tesla, SpaceX, Starlink and X. Musk is already using them to influence global politics. If he were to actually join a Trump administration, he could massively expand his geopolitical influence. Musk, Tesla and dealing with China Many of Musk's contacts with heads of state and government date back to the early days of Tesla. In 2012, Tesla launched the Model S, the first mass-produced battery electric car on the market. While politicians around the world are proclaiming an energy revolution, Musk is supplying the cars. Musk pulls the strings at Tesla. Only recently, shareholders approved a bonus payment to him amounting to over $50 billion over 10 years. He is also expanding his power on the board of directors. Musk is regularly courted by economics ministers and heads of government from all over the world: They hope that the next Tesla factory will be built in their country. Since the summer of 2021, Musk has met at least 15 times with heads of state and government or leading ministers to discuss possible Tesla factories in their countries. Among them are France's President Emmanuel Macron and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. At the beginning of the year, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi advertised the construction of a new gigafactory in his country at his election rallies. One person who made an early effort to win over Tesla is the Chinese head of state and party leader Xi Jinping. Since 2018, Musk has been part of Xi's plan to make China a leading e-car manufacturer despite U.S. trade restrictions. At the time, Xi is said to have seen Musk as a technology visionary without a political agenda. Xi allowed Tesla to become the first foreign car manufacturer to retain full control over its Chinese subsidiary. Tesla began building cars in Shanghai in 2019. Five years later, the tide has turned. Xi has achieved his goal: China is the leader in the production of battery electric cars. The Chinese manufacturer BYD dominates the domestic market with a share of over 35%, far ahead of Tesla with 6%. Nevertheless, the country is by far the most important market for Tesla after the United States. While China could maintain its leading position in electric vehicles even without Musk, Musk cannot do without China. A large part of his fortune is based on Tesla shares. Musk is therefore keen to maintain good relations with Beijing and regularly visits government representatives. Musk could become Xi's lobbyist Trump's approach to China is less diplomatic. During his term of office as U.S. president (2017 to 2021), he began a trade dispute with China. And he wants to continue it in a possible second term of office. Import duties on Chinese goods, for instance, are to be increased to 60%. In the event of a Trump victory, Beijing could hope that Musk would lobby Trump for China's interests; in any case, it stands to reason that Musk would also keep an eye on his own business interests as a possible member of the government. Political scientist Ian Bremmer, founder of the consulting firm Eurasia Group, refers to a meeting between Musk and the Chinese head of government Li Qiang in April. At the Republican Party Convention, Trump then spoke about the possibility of Chinese e-car manufacturers producing in the U.S., Bremmer says. Because the Chinese market is essential for Tesla, Xi has influence over Musk – and his other companies. Russian President Putin is aware of this too. He is said to have asked Musk not to activate his Starlink satellite internet in Taiwan as a favor to Beijing. Musk, Starlink and the war in Ukraine Starlink is operated by Musk's company SpaceX, which he founded in 2002. With SpaceX, Musk has revolutionized space travel. The reusable rockets make rocket launches significantly cheaper, and the competition cannot keep up with these prices. This is also the case with Starship, Musk's current project. In a recent interview with the NZZ, Thomas Zurbuchen, the former director of NASA, explained that Starship is changing the entire space travel industry. This is because the giant rocket enormously reduces the cost of transporting materials into space. This will fuel the commercialization of space. With Starship, Musk will also be at the forefront when it comes to building a permanently inhabited moon base and one day flying people to Mars. SpaceX already dominates space travel with its Falcon 9 rockets. SpaceX and the Falcon 9 are particularly essential for the government of Joe Biden. The company is building a network of spy satellites for the U.S. Department of Defense – as well as satellites for the secret service. In total, the contracts between the Pentagon and SpaceX amount to $3.6 billion. Several Pentagon officials expressed concerns to the New York Times that SpaceX could become a monopolist with the help of these government contracts. This would ultimately seal the dependence of the military and the secret services on Musk, they argued – a dependence on an entrepreneur whose behavior is considered erratic and who is known for his rapidly changing opinions. SpaceX takes astronauts to and from the International Space Station for NASA and is scheduled to carry out two manned lunar missions. In total, Musk and NASA have contracts worth $11.8 billion. The access to state secrets that Musk gains through his collaboration with the Pentagon and NASA is particularly controversial in geopolitical terms. With regard to the talks between Musk and Putin, however, there is no evidence so far that Musk has violated security regulations, an American official told the Wall Street Journal. Other SpaceX customers include the European Space Agency (ESA), the German Foreign Intelligence Service and the South Korean army. «The entire Western world depends on Elon Musk's rockets,» is how ESA CEO Josef Aschbacher summarized the situation to the NZZ at the beginning of the year. Ukraine is at Musk's mercy However, SpaceX carries out most of its rocket launches to build and expand its Starlink satellite internet network. Starlink's satellite network stretches around the entire planet. Thanks to this, anyone with a suitable terminal theoretically has access to the Internet. In reality, it is Musk who decides where, for whom and when the satellites are activated. He owns 42% of all SpaceX shares, but controls 79% of the voting rights. This power is most evident in the war in Ukraine. At the beginning of the war, Musk was still a passionate supporter of Volodymyr Zelenskyy; he sent thousands of Starlink terminals to the Ukrainian army. Starlink has become indispensable for Ukrainian military communications. According to the SpaceX website, the service does not work in Crimea or in the partially occupied regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. In the fall of 2022, Musk personally decided that the internet network over Crimea would not be activated for the Ukrainian armed forces, thus preventing at least one Ukrainian operation in the area. He wanted to prevent a nuclear war, he explained. Two years later, Musk is openly speaking out against new American aid for Kyiv. His main argument: «There is no way in hell that Putin is going to lose this war.» He has launched his own peace plan, which contains numerous demands from the Kremlin. Trump has also announced that he wants to bring the war in Ukraine to a quick end. If he is reelected as president, Musk could help him by switching off the Ukrainian army's internet network. Taiwan cannot trust Musk Musk's political U-turn on the Ukraine issue has certainly also been registered in Taiwan – the state to which Musk is supposed to completely deny Starlink at Putin's request. China claims Taiwan for itself and reserves the right to annex Taiwan by force. The fact that Musk, who wants to be on good terms with Xi Jinping, appeared to show understanding for Beijing's position in the conflict last year is also likely to displease Taiwan. China considers the island to be an integral part of its country, Musk argued, similar to the United States' attitude toward Hawaii. According to the New York Times, negotiations between Taiwan and Starlink took place at an earlier date. In the meantime, however, the island state has started to develop its own satellite internet. Musk, X and political disinformation With Tesla and Starlink, Musk is active in economic and geopolitical spheres. However, he also plays an important role in shaping political opinion – through the purchase of Twitter in 2022. Musk uses the platform, which he has since renamed X, to spread his own views, which are sometimes controversial. He has over 200 million followers, with whom he sometimes also shares contributions directly from Russian propaganda factories. On X, Musk not only expresses his support for Trump, but also his goodwill toward politicians from other countries, such as Argentinian President Javier Milei. Or he shares his views on geopolitics, such as the aforementioned «peace plan» for Ukraine. In addition, X has long since become a platform for foreign despots and dictators to disseminate their propaganda. Researchers and the media have repeatedly uncovered large bot networks that spread false information, for instance about the U.S. election or the war in Ukraine. In Germany alone, the Federal Foreign Office uncovered a Russian disinformation campaign, which included more than 50,000 German-language user accounts. As Musk has significantly reduced security precautions and the moderation of posts, it has become easier for bots to proliferate on the platform. The monetization system also plays a role in this – as does artificial intelligence (AI). Verified users receive a share of the advertising revenue generated by their posts. This makes it profitable to buy a blue verification checkmark and attach it to a large language model, which then starts to post uncontrollably. Musk's AI model provides problematic answers Meanwhile, Musk himself is heavily involved in the AI sector. Paying X users have access to Grok, the language model from Musk's company xAI. When the latest version of Grok was released in August, users reported that they could have easily used the program to generate bomb-making instructions and Nazi propaganda. When Joe Biden withdrew from the Democratic presidential race in July, Grok spent over a week spreading the false message that candidates are no longer allowed to be replaced so late in the race, which was shared millions of times. xAI uses data from X, among others, for its training. Musk wants to attack big players such as Open AI, Meta and Alphabet with his AI. According to the company, it has built the largest data center in the world in Memphis. The CEO of chip manufacturer Nvidia recently described it as the «fastest supercomputer on the planet.» Musk also uses chips that were technically intended for Tesla for the project. Elon Musk also repeatedly talks about AI on his trips to the world's heads of state to explore possible collaborations. He raised the subject during his visit to the Italian head of government Giorgia Meloni or to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for instance. Artificial intelligence, space travel, satellite internet and e-mobility – there are numerous reasons for Musk to get involved in global politics. This year, he also seems to have realized what influence he, who has long been considered apolitical, could have in his adopted country, the U.S. As head of the planned «Efficiency Commission,» Musk could also take action against those regulations that affect his own companies such as Tesla, SpaceX and X in a possible Trump administration. As an advisor to Trump, Musk could play an even more important geopolitical role than he already does. Conflicts of interest are unavoidable: Domestically, because his companies profit directly from the state through numerous contracts. And in terms of foreign policy, because Putin and Xi, America's two biggest adversaries, exert influence over him. Image sources: Reuters, Keystone and Imago. Latest articles