Elon Musk joins Trump’s call with Ukraine’s Zelenskyy

Elon Musk joined a Wednesday call between President-elect Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said four people familiar with the matter, in the latest sign that the tech billionaire intends to intertwine himself with Trump’s governing apparatus.

The call began with a conversation between Trump and Zelenskyy, who remarked how the call was possible because of Musk’s Starlink internet service, which connected the two leaders while Zelenskyy was on a train to Budapest, said two of the people familiar with their conversation. Trump said Starlink had provided internet access to recent hurricane victims in the United States, noted that Musk was with him, and then put him on the call.

“It was very pleasant,” said a Ukrainian official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation. Zelenskyy “thanked” Musk for the Starlink terminals Ukraine relies on for much of its military communications amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country, the official added.

Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. Axios first reported Musk’s involvement in the call.

Ukrainian officials came away from the call feeling that Musk, one of Trump’s largest donors, would join additional calls between the president-elect and world leaders as U.S. allies and adversaries scramble to prepare for a change of leadership in Washington following this week’s election.

Earlier in the week, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said his call with Trump occurred while the president-elect was having dinner with Musk and the tech mogul’s child.

Trump’s inclusion of the world’s richest person on leader-level phone calls demonstrates Musk’s extraordinary accumulation of political and economic power.

Musk, who donated well more than $75 million to Trump’s campaign, provided logistical support for its voter-turnout efforts and extolled the GOP candidate on his social media platform X, has much to gain from his newfound political kinship.

His companies, which include SpaceX and Tesla, receive billions of dollars in government contracts across more than a dozen federal agencies, including the Pentagon, which relies on the tech mogul to launch its military satellites into orbit.

Musk’s relationships with federal agencies have been contentious in several instances, however, with some the subject of investigation and review.

The phone call between the three powerful men also underscored how important Musk’s sprawling portfolio of properties is to foreign countries.

Ukraine relies heavily on Starlink to provide secure communication among front-line troops and to allow constant battlefield monitoring in command centers, where internet access may otherwise be spotty or nonexistent.

Tens of thousands of Starlink devices, many spray-painted in camouflage colors to avoid detection from Russian drones, dot Ukraine’s front lines and are often attached to the roofs of soldiers’ vehicles.

They also allow soldiers to put their phones on airplane mode to use the internet, reducing the likelihood that Russian troops will detect Ukrainian positions through the presence of active phones pinging off cell towers. Starlink services were initially provided to Ukraine for free after the war began in 2022, but Musk later threatened to cut the service off entirely. He then billed the Pentagon for Ukraine’s usage of the system.

Ukrainian troops say that despite Starlink being banned in Russia, Russian troops have managed to obtain some terminals, fueling their advance on the battlefield. Ukrainian troops operating inside Russia’s Kursk region, where they control a large swath of territory, have felt firsthand the threat of disconnection from satellite internet. They have had to learn to operate without consistent communications, and have dug into positions in areas where they can trick Starlink into thinking they are still in Ukraine, troops say.

The call between Trump and Zelenskyy was amicable, say people familiar with it, but it comes at a time of nervousness for Kyiv about what a Trump presidency might mean for the war effort.

Ukraine requires billions of dollars in economic and military support every month to continue to fend off its bigger and better-equipped foe. Trump has complained about U.S. financial support for Kyiv and has pledged to quickly end the war, but he has not outlined any plan to do so. His past praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised fears he will cut U.S. aid to Ukraine and pressure Kyiv to cede its sovereign territory.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Musk has had regular conversations with Putin since the Ukraine war began.

Some Ukrainians have expressed cautious optimism that Trump, while unpredictable, may prove more helpful than the Biden administration, which lagged on some weapons requests while never seriously exploring a diplomatic solution to end the conflict.

Zelenskyy met Trump in person in September, on a U.S. visit where he held separate meetings to present his “victory plan” to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump. The Trump meeting, Zelenskyy later told reporters, was “maximally positive.”

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Kareem Fahim in Beirut and Beril Eski in Istanbul contributed to this report.