Did Elon Musk speak to Vladimir Putin before floating 'peace proposal' on Russia-Ukraine war?

Russia-Ukraine war: After a report claimed that Tesla CEO Elon Musk directly spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin before suggesting a peace proposal on Ukraine on Twitter, Musk has broken his silence on the matter.

He has denied the report published by VICE news and claimed that he only spoke to Putin once 18 months ago. Musk further said that the two spoke about space.

According to the VICE news report, Musk spoke to Putin before rolling out a peace proposal for the Russia-Ukraine war to his Twitter followers which received immense backlash from Ukrainian officials including President Zelenskyy. 

Also Read: Chinese envoy to US praises Elon Musk's 'peace proposal' to resolve China-Taiwan tensions

The multibillionaire had floated out options to end the Russia-Ukraine war. One of the options was to formally allow Russia to annex Crimea.

"In a mailout sent to Eurasia Group subscribers, Ian Bremmer wrote that Tesla CEO Musk told him that Putin was `prepared to negotiate,` but only if Crimea remained Russian if Ukraine accepted a form of permanent neutrality, and Ukraine recognised Russia`s annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia," the VICE report said.

Earlier, irked over the billionaire`s comments, Ukraine`s former Ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk had lashed out at Musk."F*** off is my very diplomatic reply to you," Melnyk said in a Tweet.

"The only outcome that now no Ukrainian will EVER buy your f***ing tesla crap. So good luck to you," he said in another tweet.

Putin last week formally announced the annexation of four regions - Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia and claimed that "this is the will of millions of people.