Billionaire entrepreneur and incoming Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) director Elon Musk met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations to seek ways to reduce Mideast tensions, according to the New York Times.
President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team did not confirm that a meeting took place, according to the Times:
Elon Musk, a close adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump, met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday in New York in a session that two Iranian officials described as a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States.
The Iranians said the meeting between Mr. Musk and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani lasted more than an hour and was held at a secret location. The Iranians, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss policy publicly, described the meeting as “positive” and “good news.”
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Karoline Leavitt, the transition spokeswoman for the incoming Trump-Vance administration, said in a statement: “The American people re-elected President Trump because they trust him to lead our country and restore peace through strength around the world. When he returns to the White House, he will take the necessary action to do just that.”
Trump has pursued a dual strategy with Iran, threatening on the one hand to allow Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, while at the same time saying that he wants a new agreement with Iran — albeit stronger than the permissive nuclear deal that President Barack Obama reached in 2015, and from which Trump withdrew in 2018.
The same strategy yielded deescalation with North Korea, as well as the Abraham Accords, during Trump’s first term.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.