A Russian official said the American billionaire Elon Musk could be offered political asylum in Russia over his fierce dispute with Donald Trump

Dmitry Novikov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, made the comments to Russian state news outlet TASS.

“I think that Musk has a completely different game, [so] he will not need any political asylum, although if he did, Russia, of course, could provide it,” Novikov said, in remarks translated from Russian.

Musk and Trump, ostensibly political allies over cuts to federal spending, publicly clashed on June 5 in a series of exchanges across social media and in comments to reporters.

      • blitzen@lemmy.ca
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        12 days ago

        Do you think physical distance is keeping the data safely within our borders?

        • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
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          11 days ago

          Physical distance of his testicles and some pliers might be the deciding factor between giving all the data and ALL the data.

          • Cenzorrll@lemmy.world
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            11 days ago

            If I may put on my conspiracy theory hat:

            With all the DOGE-starlink-russia shit I’ve been reading about, I wouldn’t be surprised if Russia has a data pipeline directly to the US government, no Musk required. I would guess it would be more of a “he might tell the US government what/how we know” which would require coming up with a new golden pipeline.

            Kinda like how the Cheeto Taco unwittingly showed the world the US satellite capabilities in his first term by showing a picture. There’s a lot of information Musk could tell the US about his visits with Putin, where if he was in Russia, the US is stuck guessing what made it out and what Russia has access to.

          • drhodl@lemmy.world
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            11 days ago

            Russia already has all the data, silly. It would be fun if they try to confirm that Elmo’s not holding some out, with a pair of pliers though…:)

      • cecilkorik@lemmy.ca
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        12 days ago

        Between Agent Krasnov and Agent Muskovite I’m sure they already have full access, this is just their way of getting a dig in at everyone who already knows this is the case. The Kremlin is basically rubbing it in our faces to tell us they own all these guys and they know there’s nothing we can do about it.

  • Dharma Curious@startrek.website
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    12 days ago

    “Elon has too much government information to go to Russia!”

    Y’all, please, listen, Russia already has our government information. The important thing to note here is that whether Elon runs off to Moscow or not, Russia making the offer may well drive a wedge between Russia and Trump. That, in and of itself, is good news. Trump has very few political allies at this point, with most of the world turning against him and trusting the US less. If he is even further alienated, there’s a decent chance his party loses reelection or refuses to go along with his insane 3rd term plans. It’ll take us a long time to rebuild international goodwill, but alienating Trump is a good thing.

    Happy to proven wrong is there’s an aspect I’m not considering here, but in my mind when the fascist fight each other it’s good for the rest of us. Makes them easier to tackle, especially if the nonfash (and specifically the left) can unify.

    • Mandrilleren@lemmy.world
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      11 days ago

      On what do your base that Russia already have all the US secrets? I see several people on this talking point and I would really like something backing this claim.

      This (as it stands right now) is not going to drive a wedge between Russia and Trump That’s the reason it’s a lower official saying it. Deniability. But let’s see how it develops from here.

      Anyways I agree with you that it’s always better when the right is fighting each other instead of anybody else.

  • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social
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    12 days ago

    So it is all theatre.

    Because Russia is now involved in the “fued.” Orchastraited by the Kremlin no doubt. Is it to set up reasoning to help Elon avoid legal consequences in exchange for money? Data? Is it to distract from the funding bill and policies being enacted to kill 258,000,000 Americans?

    • Crozekiel@lemmy.zip
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      11 days ago

      Wait, what about “killing 258 million americans”? What did I miss? That’s a larger portion than I’d suspected they were aiming for…

  • gigachad@sh.itjust.works
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    12 days ago

    I’m not sure it’s a smart move by Russia if a Russian official sides with Musk at this point. Not saying it’s not a perfect match though.

    • Skiluros@sh.itjust.works
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      12 days ago

      I was honestly surprised that they went with such a statement. Putin is smart enough (smarter than much of the US) to understand that Trump is a lazy degenerate, but it seems a bit premature to openly ridicule Trump.

    • takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      12 days ago

      Assuming the feud is real (I’m still suspicious, as when they announced him leaving no one believed musk was truly leaving) I would imagine musk would try to get trump removed and after failing I really wouldn’t be surprised we would see some assassination attempts.

      BTW I’m not on Twitter, but when he says that trump wouldn’t win election without him, I wish people would respond that he is full of bullshit and trump alone would win anyway, pushing him to say more.

      • prodigalsorcerer@lemmy.ca
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        12 days ago

        when he says that trump wouldn’t win election without him, I wish people would respond that he is full of bullshit and trump alone would win anyway, pushing him to say more.

        I believe that Trump may not have won without him. He weaponized twitter to push misinformation against the Dems and in favour of Trump. I don’t know if the result of that can be quantified in such a way that we’d know for sure whether it changed the outcome, but it certainly had an impact.

        • takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          11 days ago

          Sorry for not being clear. I do too think that musk helped in a significant way, but I wanted to someone to reasons to musk this way to trigger him and hopefully spill more incriminating information.

        • altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          12 days ago

          I think what another important thing he did is he spoiled the place for the democrat-leaning public that started to see less and less content\traction\support there than they did before, but saw swarms of bots, elonposting, weakening factcheck and moderation instead. Twitter launched a lot of #movements, even those localized in the internet, due to it’s turbulent nature. But on X many felt disengaged, lonely and not pumped up enough to do anything, even vote.

  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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    12 days ago

    Take it! I mean, people act like he “owns” his companies but he owns like 8% of Tesla and SpaceX is probably similar. No one gives a shit about his monkey torture project and X+xAI is worthless. Boring Company isn’t doing anything. And if you’re the “CEO” of more than one company, you’re actually running zero. He’s a mascot. We could probably be rid of him for less than the price of widening an interstate for ignorant reasons.

    • Zagorath@aussie.zone
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      12 days ago

      SpaceX is probably similar

      Tesla is a publicly-traded company. There is no reason to believe SpaceX, which is still privately held, should be similar.

      A 2023 Wall Street Journal article (linked here in archive form) claims Musk controls 42% of its equity has 79% voting control.

      • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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        12 days ago

        Thank you for the clarification. None of us know their cap table, obviously, but that’s more plausible than me just guessing based on Tesla.

  • heavyboots@lemmy.ml
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    12 days ago

    That would be the dumbest thing he could possibly do to himself. Honestly I hope he is smarter than that because Putin would turn him upside down and shake him until every last nickel falls out of his pockets, and put it all into the war effort against the Ukraine.