What We're Watching: Musk irks China, Abbas meets Gantz in Israel, Putin requests Biden call

SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk

A scent of Musk in US-China space spat. Pull up! pull up! Beijing earlier this week accused the US of creating danger in space after Chinese astronauts commanding their country’s sparkling new space station nearly crashed into a satellite launched by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Beijing says the US government has to ensure that Musk’s satellites honor a 1967 treaty on safety in space. Given that SpaceX plans to launch thousands more satellites as part of its Starlink global internet access project, an already cluttered orbit is going to get even more dangerous. Governments will have to sort out who is responsible for policing private spacecraft. In the nearer term, we wonder whether this week’s near-miss space spat will have implications for Musk back on earth: China is currently the only country outside the US where his Tesla electric car company runs a factory (Germany is next, beginning early next year.) Chinese social media has reportedly lit up with criticism of Musk, with anecdotal accounts of calls for a Tesla boycott. That could hurt. Last year, Tesla sold $3 billion worth of cars in China, more than a fifth of its overall sales.

Abbas meets Gantz in Israel. In a meeting decried by hardliners on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas travelled to the home of Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz for a two-hour meeting on security and economic relations. The trip, Abbas’s first official visit to Israel in a decade, came against the backdrop of escalating attacks by Jewish settlers in the West Bank, as well as increasing violence by Palestinians in the West Bank and inside Israel. After the meeting, Israel announced “confidence-building measures,” including an advance transfer of taxes to the PA and additional permits for Palestinian businesspeople to cross into Israel. But the militants of Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, blasted Abbas’ move as treasonous, while the rightwing Likud party of former PM Bibi Netanyahu warned of dangerous “concessions” to the Palestinians. Still, some 60 percent of Palestinians polled say that anything to improve their daily lives is worth pursuing. That puts Abbas on the spot to deliver — the same poll shows three-quarters of Palestinians want him to resign. Overall, the Abbas-Gantz meeting is hardly a breakthrough. The official position of Israeli PM Naftali Bennett is that “there won’t be” a renewed peace process anytime soon. But in a conflict that has rarely seen significant leaps of progress, merely opening the way to constructive talks is always worth keeping an eye on.

Putin requests call with Biden. The Biden administration has announced that the US president will hold another call with Russia’s President Putin on Thursday afternoon “to discuss a range of topics, including upcoming diplomatic engagements with Russia.” Crucially, the White House says Putin asked for the meeting. The presence of tens of thousands of Russian troops near the border with Ukraine has set Europe and the US on edge and NATO on alert. But the threat of a Russian invasion is tempered by the high economic and political costs that Russian casualties and an occupation of parts of Ukraine hostile to Moscow would impose. We’ll be watching for any sign that Putin can draw some concession from Biden that can help him claim a political victory without a shot being fired.

More from GZERO Media

Listen: Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, made his fortune-breaking industries—space, cars, social media—and is now trying to break the government… in the name of fixing it. But what happens when Silicon Valley’s ‘move fast and break things’ ethos collides with the machinery of federal bureaucracy? On the GZERO World Podcast, Ian Bremmer sits down with WIRED Global Editorial Director Katie Drummond to unpack the implications of Musk’s deepening role in the Trump administration and what’s really behind his push into politics.

France's President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference following a summit for the "coalition of the willing" at the Elysee Palace in Paris on March 27, 2025.

LUDOVIC MARIN/Pool via REUTERS

At the third summit of the so-called “coalition of the willing” for Ukraine on Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron proposed a multinational “reassurance force” to deter Russian aggression once a ceasefire is in place – and to engage if attacked.

A group demonstrators chant slogans together as they hold posters during the protest. The ongoing protests were sparked by the arrest of Istanbul Metropolitan Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu.
Sopa Images via Reuters

Last week’s arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu sparked the largest anti-government rallies in a decade and resulted in widespread arrests throughout Turkey. Nearly 1,900 people have been detained since the protests erupted eight days ago.

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), the then-nominee for US ambassador to the UN, during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025.
Al Drago/Pool/Sipa USA

An internal GOP poll found a Republican candidate trailing in a special election for a conservative-leaning district in Florida, forcing US President Donald Trump to make a decision aimed at maintaining the Republican Party’s majority in the House.

South Sudan's Vice President Riek Machar, pictured here addressing the press in 2020.

REUTERS/Samir Bol

Alarm bells are ringing ever more loudly in South Sudan, as Vice President Riek Machar — chief rival to Prime Minister Salva Kiir — was arrested late Wednesday in an operation involving 20 armored vehicles at his compound in Juba. He was placed under house arrest, a move that is fueling fears that the country will soon descend into civil war.

Afghan Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani, pictured here at the anniversary event of the departure of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan, in Kabul, Afghanistan, on April 28, 2022.

REUTERS/Ali Khara

The Trump administration has dropped multimillion-dollar bounties on senior Afghan officials from the Haqqani network, a militant faction that carried out some of the deadliest attacks on American troops but has now positioned itself as a moderate wing within the Taliban government. But why?

The Canadian flag flies on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.

REUTERS/Blair Gable

Canada’s foreign interference watchdog is warning that China, India, and Russia plan on meddling in the country’s federal election. The contest, which launched last weekend, has already been marked by a handful of stories about past covert foreign interventions and threats of new ones.