Elon Musk's Clubhouse Invitation to Vladimir Putin Came to Nothing: Kremlin

The Kremlin said on Tuesday that an invitation from Tesla boss Elon Musk for President Vladimir Putin to join him for a chat on social network Clubhouse had come to nothing and that Moscow had not received a response after seeking further details.

Musk last month invited Putin to join him for a chat on Clubhouse, a proposal that the Kremlin described as very interesting, though it said at the time it needed to hear more details.

On Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters they had not received any response, however, and that the matter had probably been a misunderstanding.

Peskov said the matter was now probably closed.

Musk tagged the Kremlin’s account on Twitter on February 14 along with the invitation. In a separate tweet in Russian, he added: “It would be a great honour to speak with you.”

Following the invite, Peskov said, “This is, of course, a very interesting proposal, but we need to somehow understand what is meant, what is proposed. So first we will somehow check all this, and then we will react.”

He also noted, referring to Musk’s suggestion that the men chat on Clubhouse that “President Putin does not directly use social networks.”

Clubhouse, the audio chat app popular among tech billionaires, allows users to start or listen to conversations in digital “rooms” of up to 5,000 people.

Musk’s proposal comes after SpaceX in November sent four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), ending Russia’s monopoly as the only country able to ferry astronauts.

After the shutdown of American shuttles in 2011, the Russian Soyuz rocket had become the only spacecraft capable of bringing astronauts to the ISS.

With the advent of SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, Russia faces a sizeable dent in income. A seat in the Soyuz costs NASA around $80 million (roughly Rs. 580 crore).