‘Media Fantasy!’ Iran Rejects NY Times Claim Elon Musk Helped Secure Italian Journalist’s Release

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Iran’s Foreign Ministry denied claims by the New York Times that billionaire Trump ally Elon Musk played a role in securing the release of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, dismissing the newspaper’s report as “media fantasy.”

The New York Times quoted anonymous sources in Iran on Thursday and reported that Musk “helped secure the release of Ms. Sala by reaching out to Iran’s ambassador to the U.N.”

Iranian ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei rejected assertions that Musk had contacted Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, to facilitate Sala’s release.

“Such reports lack credibility and are part of a broader media fantasy,” Baghaei said.

Sala, a journalist for Il Foglio, was arrested last month in Tehran. The New York Times reported that Iran had detained Sala to leverage the release of Iranian engineer Abedini Najafabadi who had been detained in Milan on a U.S. extradition request. Najafabadi was released just days after Sala.

Il Foglio director Claudio Cerasa branded Sala’s detention a “hostage” situation in a scathing editorial that criticized the Iranian regime for what he wrote was a brazen assault on fundamental rights.

Speaking after Sala’s release, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni characterized the resolution as a “complex work of diplomatic triangulation with Iran, and obviously also with the United States of America.”

However, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby distanced Washington from the deal, stating it was “an Italian decision from soup to nuts.”