New York: The New York Times said Friday that tech entrepreneur Elon Musk met with Iran’s UN envoy and spoke about measures to ease tensions between the US and Iran.

According to the journal, two Iranian officials characterized the more than hour-long conversation between Musk and Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani, which took place in a secret location in New York, as “positive” and aimed at lowering tensions between the two nations.

According to the New York Times, Trump gave the phone to the tech billionaire Musk, the owner of Tesla and X, when he named him co-director of a new government efficiency agency during a conversation with Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, last week. Musk has been instrumental in giving Ukraine communications capabilities throughout the conflict with Russia.

Trump called the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and foreign powers “a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” and he withdrew the United States from it during his first term. He also placed severe economic penalties on Iranian oil earnings and international financial activities. In 2020, he also gave the order to kill Qassim Suleimani, a senior Iranian commander, in Iraq.

Iranian authorities pledged to exact revenge after Iran’s supreme commander forbade any talks with the Trump administration.

The murder of Suleimani. In a court filing last week, US prosecutors claimed that Iran had planned to kill Trump prior to the election.

In the meanwhile, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said that Iran is ready to work with international organizations to answer any inquiries about its peaceful nuclear program at a meeting with Rafael Grossi, the IAEA’s visiting director general, in Tehran on Thursday.

Pezeshkian emphasized that the IAEA’s findings show that Iran has fulfilled all of its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or Iran nuclear agreement, but the US unilaterally withdrew from it, according to a report by Iranian official media Irna.

According to the NYT article, which cited an unnamed Iranian source, ambassador Iravani advised the tech billionaire Musk to bring some of his companies to Tehran and ask the Treasury for sanctions waivers during their meeting.

According to the journal, Iran’s envoy to the UN said that it would not remark on the meeting in public.