Iran’s Foreign Ministry says its ambassador to the United Nations did not meet with Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, CEO of Space X and Tesla and a close ally of US President-elect Donald Trump.
The meeting between the US billionaire and Iran’s envoy to the UN took place at a secret location in New York on Monday and lasted more than an hour, according to The New York Times, which cited Iranian officials who reportedly described the discussion as centred on how to defuse tensions between the two countries. However, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei denied the potential meeting.
Reports of the proposed meeting raised questions about what Musk’s influence might look like in the new administration, especially when it comes to US foreign policy. For instance, he joined Trump’s conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to two sources. Sources said that expressed his gratitude to Musk for his help with providing communications through Starlink to Ukraine.
Besides, Trump said that Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” in his second administration. However, it remains unclear how the department, which is supposed to provide advice and recommendations from outside the government, will function and whether the US Congress will be willing to approve such a sweeping reform of government spending and operations.
