Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘interested’ in Elon Musk’s Clubhouse chat

South African-born tech billionaire Elon Musk is having a blast on the exclusive Clubhouse App. During the GameStop Saga, he interviewed Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev. Now, he’s reached out to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

This should get interesting.

Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin’s ‘chat’

What is Clubhouse?

But first, what is Clubhouse, I hear you ask? Clubhouse is a voice-only social media app currently setting the internet abuzz. It’s invite-only, so it’s very exclusive too. It’s the new kid on the social media block and it’s making big waves.

The audio app allows users to follow other users or topics of interest while having access to certain topic-geared chat rooms. Think of it as a classroom, but more fun, when you listen and then raise your hand when you want to say something.

The room owner can give you speaking privileges. You can also applaud the speaker by rapidly clicking the mute/unmute button. It all seems fun and Elon Musk has been having a blast.

The fun part is that you could also import your Twitter profile from scratch once you are in. Clubhouse is currently only available on iPhones, with an Android version currently in the works.

Clubhouse invitation for Vladimir Putin

Earlier this week, Musk tagged the President of Russia himself on Twitter, asking if Putin would like to join him for a conversation on Clubhouse. He then tweeted in Russian that it would be a great honour.

Let’s not forget that SpaceX in November 2020 sent four American astronauts to space from American soil, for the first time in nine years, effectively cutting off the United States’ reliance on Russia to ferry astronauts.

After the shutdown of American shuttles in 2011, the Russian Soyuz rocket had become the only spacecraft capable of bringing astronauts to the ISS.

Now read | SpaceX Crew-1 launch: Meet the astronauts on first operational mission to ISS

Putin interested in Musk’s proposal

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday, 16 February that President Putin was interested in Musk’s proposal. However, speaking to reporters, Peskov said the Kremlin first needed to understand the specifics.

“This is, of course, a very interesting proposal, but we need to somehow understand what is meant, what is proposed. So first we will somehow check all this, and then we will react.”

The world is waiting to see how this would unfold, as Peskov also stated that “President Putin does not directly use social networks” and Clubhouse is very much a social media network.

Now read | Elon Musk agreed to ‘do Clubhouse with Kanye West’