Putin praises Musk as visionary, likens him to Soviet-era space icon Korolov

Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 16 lauded U.S. tech billionaire Elon Musk as a trailblazing visionary, comparing him to legendary Ukraine-born Soviet rocket scientist Serhii Korolov during a speech at Bauman Moscow State Technical University.

“You know, there is such a person, he lives in the States, Musk, who, you could say, raves about Mars,” Putin told a group of university students.

“Such people (Musk) do not often appear in the human population, energized by a certain idea… Just as the ideas of Korolov, our pioneers, were implemented in their time."

Korolov, an engineer born in Zhytomyr in Soviet Ukraine, is widely regarded as the father of the Soviet space program, having developed the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, and the Vostok spacecraft that carried the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit in 1961.

Musk — the CEO of SpaceX, owner of X, and a close ally of U.S. President Donald Trump — has long claimed his ambition to put humans on Mars. He has suggested 2029 as a possible target for the first crewed mission, with 2031 considered more likely.

The Kremlin has been intensifying its outreach to Musk. In March, Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and a key Kremlin envoy in talks with the U.S., proposed that Moscow supply nuclear power technology for Musk’s Mars missions.

Dmitriev called Musk a “great visionary” and said Russia was open to cooperation between SpaceX and Roscosmos, Russia’s state-run space agency.

Initially supporting Ukraine by providing Starlink satellite communications, Musk has become increasingly critical of the embattled country and President Volodymyr Zelensky, often echoing pro-Russian narratives.

Despite severe Western sanctions and the collapse of most economic ties with the U.S., Russia and the United States continue to cooperate on some space initiatives.