National security experts are raising alarms that Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who is a close ally of President-elect Donald Trump, reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations earlier this week, warning that the discussion risks placating a belligerent and unreliable sponsor of terrorism.

Musk, who has emerged as one of Trump’s top advisers in recent weeks, met with the Iranian ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, for a previously undisclosed conversation in New York on Monday, according to a New York Times report published on Thursday, which cited anonymous Iranian officials who described a “positive” meeting with the world’s richest person.

The discussion reportedly focused on alleviating tensions between the U.S. and Iran, which allegedly plotted to assassinate Trump, even as the incoming administration has indicated it will seek to renew its so-called “maximum pressure” campaign targeting the Islamic Republic, including harsh sanctions.

“If true, this would be an own goal of strategic proportions,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank who specializes in Iran, told Jewish Insider on Thursday evening. “Despite campaigning long and hard for Trump, Musk would have just met with a representative of the regime that was trying to kill the 45th and soon to be 47th president of the United States.”

Musk, whom Trump announced on Tuesday will help lead a new government efficiency department in his next administration, has been deeply engaged in the transition process — notably joining in on a phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, which has depended on the billionaire’s Starlink satellite internet service amid its war with Russia.

“The goal should be to get Starlink in the hands of the Iranian people, not the regime that rules over and oppresses them,” Ben Taleblu added. “Musk should course-correct by setting up meetings with leading Iranian opposition figures and try to find ways to use public-private partnerships and the tech world to support the Iranian people. Doing so would be in line with the zeitgeist of Trump’s maximum pressure policy against the Islamic Republic.”

The private discussion with a senior Iranian official represents an audacious new level of involvement for Musk — who reportedly requested the meeting, according to one Iranian official cited in the Times report.

“This meeting seems dangerous, because it does not seem that Mr. Musk was briefed on previous U.S.-Iran exchanges,” Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who served as a special envoy for Iran in the first Trump administration, told JI, adding, “He may have left the Iranians with impressions of future U.S. policy that will create trouble after January 20.”

Details of the discussion have not been disclosed, though one Iranian source told the Times that the ambassador suggested that Musk “obtain sanctions exemptions from the Treasury and bring some of his businesses to Tehran,” raising additional questions about conflicts of interest that have been an ongoing source of scrutiny for Trump’s high-profile advisor.

A former national security official in the first Trump administration, who worked on Iran policy, said he “wouldn’t give much credence to the Iranian version of any conversation,” adding: “Tehran knows that Musk is with the president all day every day now. If he is delivering a message, it is Trump speaking.”

“With that said,” the former Trump official told JI, speaking on condition of anonymity to address a sensitive topic, “if this is Musk’s own big idea and not a clear threat being delivered from the future commander in chief, this can go badly very quickly.”

Trump’s team did not respond to requests for comment from JI on Thursday.

In recent days, Trump has nominated several Iran hawks to top national security posts in his Cabinet, suggesting that he will take a hardline stance against the Islamic Republic. During his first term, Trump unilaterally pulled out of the Iran nuclear agreement, imposed punishing sanctions on Iran and approved the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassim Suleimani, among other aggressive measures.

Jason Brodsky, the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran, pointed out that Musk’s meeting was reportedly held before the announcements of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) as Trump’s secretary of state and Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) as his national security advisor. “From Tehran’s perspective, it uses these engagements to influence and as a lure to neutralize international pressure campaigns,” Brodsky told JI.

Danielle Pletka, a foreign policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, said that Musk’s meeting, intentionally or not, helps legitimize the Islamic Republic. “What Musk may not understand is that he lends his good name to the Iranian regime when he meets with their agents,” she told JI. “And that’s a shame.”

Given the expected direction of Trump’s Iran approach, Musk’s recent foray “could send the wrong signal now,” said Michael Makovsky, the president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, “especially since I believe Trump keenly gets the Iran threat and intends to pressure them.”

Andrew Ghalili, a senior policy analyst at National Union for Democracy in Iran, echoed that view, arguing that meeting with Iran’s U.N. ambassador “would be counterproductive to the Iran policy” that Trump “ran on — maximum pressure and America First.” 

“History has shown that negotiating with regime officials will not lead to defused tensions,” Ghalili said, “but instead will harm U.S. national security, business interests and the Iranian people.”