Elon Musk keeps attracting attention to Clubhouse, an audio-based invite-only social app. The platform provides unlimited virtual rooms for people from all over the globe to have conversations in. Those conversations can be of any nature, and Elon himself has already hosted an interview before an audience of 5,000 people. Recently, the CEO of Tesla did another stunt by twitting at @KremlinRussia_E and extending an invitation to the Russian president himself, Vladimir Putin. The invitation doesn’t appear to be a joke, considering that it was written in Russian, and in a rather gracious manner. “I would be honored to talk to you,” Elon wrote in the tweet.
To everyone’s surprise, the Kremlin has already responded. Apparently, the Russian government found the invitation “interesting”, but they would like to know what they would be getting into in advance. “We would like to understand what this is about,” Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said when discussing the matter with journalists.
“As you know, President Putin doesn’t use social media. He doesn’t manage the accounts personally. Overall, this is definitely a very interesting proposal. So we would like take some time to check everything first, and only then react.”
Vladimir Putin does not often give interviews, and navigating the latest social media networks, certainly, would not be consistent with his usual public image. However, considering the fact the Elon Musk is not a political figure, and his views appear to be utilitarian, rather than ideologically-driven, there is a chance that we are about witness something really special in the near future, thanks to Clubhouse and Elon’s enthusiasm. Even the fact that the Kremlin has responded at all is pretty peculiar already.
The Russian president is not the only public figure, to whom Musk extended such an invitation. During his first appearance on Clubhouse, he hosted an interview with Robinhood’s CEO Vlad Tenev to discuss the recent GameStop news. Just a few days ago, he tweeted that the famous rapper and producer Kanye West has agreed to join the platform and have a conversation in a public room.
It is not always clear why one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs invites one person or another to an online chat. His interest in Clubhouse as a new form of online interaction appears to be genuine, and perhaps, he is simply experimenting and testing the limits of this unusual communication channel. Judging by the track record of his previous and ongoing projects, Musk tends to stick to a ‘nothing is impossible’ mindset. So far, many of his undertakings, even the most ambitious ones, had a fair amount of success, so if anyone can pursue Vladimir Putin to appear on a trendy invite-only social network, Musk can.
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