Democrat TV host threatens Musk over ‘Russia ties’

Rachel Maddow has invoked a debunked media story to go after the SpaceX owner

Elon Musk can’t possibly keep his US government contracts because of his alleged secret contacts with “America’s worst enemy,” MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has said.

The Wall Street Journal claimed last week that Musk had communicated with Russian President Vladimir Putin and withheld the services of his Starlink network to Ukraine’s military. Both Musk and Moscow have dismissed the report as fake news.

Maddow, however, proceeded as if the Journal’s reporting was a proven fact in her election day show on Tuesday evening.

“You really can’t have the head of a company that is the primary rocket launcher for the defense department and NASA, you can’t have the head of that company in secret communications with America’s worst enemy while America’s enemy is actively waging a war against one of our allies, especially once you learn that he’s using his businesses to help the other side, to help Russia in that war,” Maddow said.

“Now that we know what we know about Elon Musk, this election – regardless of who wins – has produced a national security problem,” she continued, arguing that it will likely produce “tons of drama.”

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“So, buckle up. Even if [Donald] Trump doesn’t win, the Defense Department and NASA are gonna need a new arrangement for all their rockets and for all the multi-billion-dollar contracts Elon Musk’s companies have with the US government,” Maddow said. Either the government will have to get out of those contracts, or Musk’s companies “will have to unwind from him.”

Musk has denied the Journal’s claims, pointing out that Starlink was “the BACKBONE of Ukrainian military communications at the front lines, because everything else has been blown up or jammed by Russia.”

The founder of SpaceX and owner of X (formerly Twitter) addressed Maddow’s comments shortly afterward, speaking to journalist Tucker Carlson in a livestream from Mar-a-Lago.

“Rachel Maddow is a crazy person,” Musk said, describing her as “frothing-at-the-mouth crazy fascist, basically, sort of pretending to be a liberal.”

Asked how much pressure he has been under because of his support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Musk resorted to a joke.

“Well, apart from multiple Democrats saying they want to put me in jail, take away government contracts from my companies, nationalize my companies, deport me as an illegal, and have me arrested for apparently being Putin’s best friend, nothing besides those things,” he said.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Journal’s claims were untrue, “most likely linked” to Musk’s support for Trump, and should not be taken seriously.

While the official count of votes in the US presidential election is still pending, Trump has secured the needed 270 electoral votes, according to multiple media organizations.