Of course he’s going to do what he defaults to and knows best to try to get out of a bad deal?
Can you really say edgelording so hard you appear to be a legitimate national security threat to get out of a $44bln deal you don’t want is something that doesn’t sound typically Elon Musk?
It looks more like he wanted exclusive Tesla and/or SpaceX deals there. Russia has no proper cars, but China has. The Russian rocket industry might also look attractive, he won't get any Chinese contracts for sure.
The heavily embargoed, historic-enemy of the US Russia?
The one who is actively threatening to nuke us because we’re sending millions of tons of weapons and ammunition to someone they’re invading while we sanction them to the gills?
What are you smoking? There is no way they’d let him export Rocket engines to them, or cars. Likely for decades.
I suspect the FBI visited him after his Putin talk and reminded him that they could make him register as a foreign agent, or go to jail for that. Not that anyone would say anything.
He was hoping he’d look like such a mess they’d step in and shitcan it.
But no one took the bait.