NYT: Cecilia Sala freed with Elon Musk’s help

Tesla and X owner Elon Musk confirmed that he had intervened to speed up the release of Italian journalist Cecilia Sala, according to a report in the New York Times citing two Iranian officials, including a diplomat from the Foreign Ministry in Tehran.

Contacts between Sala’s boyfriend and Musk’s Italian contact

On 29 December, Sala’s boyfriend Daniele Raineri sent a message to Andrea Stroppa, Musk’s contact person in Italy, asking him to bring the situation to the billionaire’s attention. In an interview, Raineri said he had thought of him because he had read about an open channel of communication between Musk and some Iranian diplomats.

Stroppa had then stated that the billionaire had ‘taken note of the request, but that he did not know whether he had been involved in the case’. Shortly after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, the billionaire reportedly contacted Iranian Ambassador to the UN Amir Saeid Iravani to discuss the case.

The two Iranian officials told the NYT that when Musk spoke with the ambassador, he asked that Iran release the journalist and reassured him that the US would not pressure Italy to extradite arrested Iranian engineer and businessman Mohammad Abedini.

Speculations about prisoner exchange

In a press point after Sala’s release, Meloni said she had no information about Elon Musk’s role in the release. A Biden administration spokesman said the US government was not involved in the negotiations.

Sala had been arrested on 19 December in the Iranian capital Tehran, apparently for “violating Islamic law”. Iran then released the journalist on 8 January and four days later Italy released Abedini. A lightning move that led many to speculate about a prisoner exchange between the two countries.

Abedini had been detained on Italian soil at the request of the US Justice Department after a federal court in Massachusetts accused him of procuring drone technology for Iran that was later used in the January 2024 attack on the US base in Jordan.

NYT: Sala arrested by Iran to speed up Abedini’s release

Italy arrested Abedini in mid-December while he was in transit at Milan’s Malpensa airport. Three days later, Revolutionary Guard agents raided Sala’s hotel room and placed her in solitary confinement in Evin prison. She had travelled to Iran on a journalist’s visa.

According to the NYT, a member of the Revolutionary Guards and the two Iranian officials stated that the journalist had been arrested in a calculated move to pressure Italy for Abedini’s release.

In November, a few weeks before Sala’s arrest, Musk met for more than an hour with the Iranian ambassador at his Manhattan residence to discuss easing tensions between Tehran and Washington as the new Trump administration prepared to take power.