Elon Musk has met a leading Iranian official ahead of attempts by the incoming Donald Trump administration to calm tensions in the Middle East.
Not content with taking the axe to America’s bloated bureaucracy on behalf of the incoming President, the billionaire is turning his hand to foreign policy.
The Tesla tycoon – appointed by the President-elect to lead a new US Department of Government Efficiency – spent more than an hour meeting Iran’s ambassador to the UN, it was reported yesterday.
Their ‘positive’ encounter aimed at defusing tensions between the countries is being seen as an early sign that ‘deal-maker’ Mr Trump is serious about diplomacy with Tehran. That is despite an alleged Iranian-led plot to assassinate him weeks before he stormed back to the White House.
It also comes in spite of Mr Trump’s avowed support for Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who launched retaliatory air strikes against Iran after it targeted Israel with a barrage of missiles last month.
Perhaps most intriguingly of all it underlines the extraordinary influence that the world’s richest man is set to have once Mr Trump begins his second term in January.
The 53-year-old owner of Tesla and X formed a close bond with Mr Trump during his election campaign, funding it to the tune of an estimated £160million.
As well as having his loyalty rewarded in the form of a mission to ‘dismantle government bureaucracy’, Mr Musk has reportedly joined him on telephone calls with world leaders – including Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Mr Musk and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani met for more than an hour at a secret location on Monday, The New York Times reported.
Iran’s ambassador also urged Mr Musk to seek exemptions from US sanctions and conduct business in Tehran, it said. Neither the Trump transition team nor Iran’s mission to the UN has so far confirmed the encounter.
While many of Mr Trump’s conservative backers have favoured a hawkish approach to Tehran, during his first term in office he tore up a deal on Iran’s nuclear programme negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama. Instead he pursued a policy of ‘maximum pressure’, which included working to force other nations not to buy Iran’s oil.
He also ordered the assassination of the Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020, sparking threats of revenge.
Details of the reported meeting emerged as Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian – considered a moderate within the clerical state – insisted to the visiting head of the UN nuclear watchdog that Tehran’s nuclear programme was ‘peaceful’.
Mr Musk is typical of the outside talent already announced by Mr Trump for his cabinet, many of whom have little or no experience of Washington politics. Several of the appointments have caused controversy.
The incoming health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is known as a vaccine sceptic and has pledged to remove fluoride from drinking water. Mr Trump’s pick for attorney general, Congressman Matt Gaetz, has previously been investigated by the justice department over alleged involvement in a sex-trafficking ring, where he was accused of having sex with a 17-year-old girl.
His appointment, meanwhile, puts to an end a Congressional investigation into alleged sexual misconduct and illicit drug use.
The new director of national intelligence, former Democrat representative Tulsi Gabbard, is suspected of having pro-Russian sympathies after she criticised Joe Biden’s support for Ukraine.
Several of the appointments showed their face on Thursday night at a gala at Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion in Florida, where the President-elect was welcomed on stage by Sylvester Stallone in front of an audience that included Argentina’s eccentric president, Javier Milei.