Elon Musk met Iran’s ambassador to the UN a day before he was made joint head of Donald Trump’s new cost cutting department, the BBC’s US partner CBS has confirmed.
The meeting took place at ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani ‘s residence in New York, with the aim of discussing how to ease tensions between the two nations, according to the New York Times which first reported the story.
The US does not have diplomatic relations with Tehran but a private meeting with Musk provided a workaround, allowing Iran to avoid a meeting with an American official, according to the New York Times.
The newspaper also said that Musk requested the meeting with the ambassador, and that it was described by Iranian officials as “positive” and “good news”.
Musk was recently appointed joint head of Donald Trump’s new cost cutting department, which will advise on government cost cutting but will not be an official arm of the government.
A day before he was appointed co-head of Donald Trump’s new cost-cutting division, Elon Musk met with Iran’s ambassador to the UN, according to CBS, the BBC’s US partner.
In order to discuss ways to reduce tensions between the two countries, the meeting was held at ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani’s home in New York, according to the New York Times, which broke the story first.
The meeting may or may not have been known to President-elect Trump or his national security team.
Mike Waltz and Marco Rubio, two recent additions to Trump’s national security team, are well-known Iran hawks who think the US should be tough on Iran.
According to the New York Times, a private meeting with Musk offered a workaround that allowed Iran to avoid meeting with an American official, despite the US’s lack of diplomatic ties with Tehran.
According to the newspaper, Musk asked for the meeting with the ambassador, and Iranian officials called it “good news” and “positive.”.
“We don’t comment on reports of private meetings that happened or didn’t happen,” stated Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung. “,”.
A request for comment from CBS News was turned down by the Iranian missions to the White House and the United Nations.
Trump reinstituted strict economic sanctions that forbid US corporations from conducting business in Iran and withdrew the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which was mediated by Barack Obama, during his first term in office.
Additionally, in 2020, Trump ordered the airstrike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Iranian military.
Israel, which has been at war with the Iranian-backed organizations Hamas and Hezbollah since Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7 of last year, is another country that the president-elect strongly supports.
Musk was just named co-head of Donald Trump’s new cost-cutting department, which will provide advice on government cost-cutting without being a formal government agency.
In addition to joining Trump on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the tech billionaire and Tesla CEO has been instrumental in supplying communications to Ukraine’s military through his Starlink satellite internet system.
