Officials have claimed that Elon Musk met with Amir Saeid Irvani, the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations, on Monday. The purported meeting suggests a shift from the “maximum pressure” campaign undertaken by the first Trump administration.
The Iranian officials, who spoke to the New York Times about the meeting, reported the meeting as “good news” and “positive.”
Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the meeting, telling the Times: “We do not comment on reports of private meetings that did or did not occur.”
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Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, posted a tweet on X on Thursday suggesting that Iran is willing to discuss another nuclear deal. “Iran never left the negotiation table on its peaceful nuclear program,” Araghchi wrote.
The purported meeting follows comments of Trump’s against regime change in Iran, made during the campaign. “We can’t get totally involved at all, you know,” Trump told an interviewer in October. “We can’t even run ourselves, let’s face it.”