Iran\u2019s foreign ministry denied that a meeting was held between the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations and Elon Musk, the world\u2019s wealthiest person and close ally of US President-elect Donald Trump, Iranian state media reported Saturday. <\/p>\n
The New York Times reported the meeting took place earlier this week, citing two Iranian officials. <\/p>\n
But Iran\u2019s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei \u201ccategorically denied\u201d that a meeting took place and was \u201csurprised\u201d by the coverage in US media, state-run IRNA said. <\/p>\n
The Times reported that a meeting between Musk and Iran\u2019s envoy Amir Saeid Iravani was held at a secret location in New York on Monday and lasted more than an hour, citing the Iranian officials, who reportedly described the discussion as focused on how to defuse tensions between the two countries. <\/p>\n
Reports of the alleged meeting raised questions about what Musk\u2019s influence might look like in the incoming administration, especially when it comes to US foreign policy. <\/p>\n
Just last week, the day after the presidential election, Musk joined Trump\u2019s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to two sources. Trump put the call on speaker and Zelensky thanked Musk for his help with providing communications through Starlink to Ukraine in the ongoing war with Russia, a source added. <\/p>\n
Trump announced Tuesday that Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead a new \u201cDepartment of Government Efficiency\u201d in his second administration. Musk, who is the CEO of Space X and Tesla, has benefitted from billions of dollars worth of federal contracts, including from NASA, the military and other US government agencies, and the announcement raised immediate concerns about potential conflicts of interest. <\/p>\n
It is not immediately clear how the department \u2013 which Trump said would \u201cprovide advice and guidance from outside of Government\u201d \u2013 would operate, and whether the US Congress \u2013 even fully controlled by Republicans \u2013 would have the appetite to approve such a massive overhaul of government spending and operations. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s foreign ministry denied that a meeting was held between the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations and Elon Musk, the world\u2019s wealthiest person and close ally of US President-elect Donald Trump, Iranian state media reported Saturday. The New York Times reported the meeting took place earlier this week, citing two Iranian officials. But Iran\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}