Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated Elon Musk on Wednesday, telling students at university that he was a pioneer comparable to the legendary Soviet engineer Sergei Korolev.
The comments came while Russia and the United States have exercised closer links under the administration of President Donald Trump, of which the founder of the billionaire Spacex Musk is a key figure.
“You know, there is a man – he lives in the United States – Musk, who could say, Raves sur Mars,” Putin told students during a visit to Bauman University, a college in Moscow specializing in science and engineering.
“They are the kind of people who do not often appear in the human population, responsible for a certain idea.”
“If it seems incredible even today, such ideas often materialize after a while. Like Korolev’s ideas, our pioneers, have been born,” added Putin.
Korolev is considered the father of the Soviet space program, developing the first Spoutnik satellite as well as Vostok 1, which transported the first Yuri Gagarin cosmonaut in orbit in 1961.
Musk, the richest man in the world and Trump’s most powerful advisor, is SpaceX’s leader – an American company that launches rockets for NASA and has the Starlink satellite internet network.
Musk was a frequent critic from Ukraine, which is currently fighting against a three -year Russian offensive.
The billionaire accused the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky last month of wanting a “war forever”, and in February, kyiv had gone “too far” in the conflict.
