Yunus envoy met Elon Musk at White House in undisclosed meeting: column
Musk discussed Starlink with Khalilur Rahman, Yunus’s top aide, in a White House meeting after US officials pushed for more cotton imports.
Khalilur Rahman, a top adviser to Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus, met Elon Musk at the White House in mid-February during a visit initially focused on avoiding US tariffs, according to The Washington Post columnist Matt Bai.
Rahman first sat down with an official from the Office of the US Trade Representative who, Bai wrote, pressed him “on the issue of cotton imports.”
“Bangladesh, the world’s largest cotton importer, gets most of its supply from West Africa and Brazil, and the United States was insisting it buy more American cotton if it wanted to head off tariffs,” a condition Rahman readily accepted, according to the column.
After the initial meeting, Rahman was then led to a nearby room where “he was surprised to find the world’s richest man,” Musk, who “wanted to discuss ongoing negotiations between Starlink and Bangladeshi regulators, who were under pressure from local telecom companies to keep Starlink out.”
Khalilur Rahman, a former career diplomat and UN official, has become one of the most influential dealmakers in the Yunus administration. He initially joined as an envoy for Rohingya-related affairs and other top priorities, before later being named “National Security Adviser” — a position with no precedent in the lexicon of Bangladeshi state bureaucracy.
He was credited with facilitating the recent visit of UN Secretary-General António Guterres to Bangladesh. In Bangkok, he was photographed in discussion with India’s influential National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval.
Neither Dhaka nor Washington has publicly disclosed his White House visit or the encounter with Elon Musk.
Netra News has sought comment from Yunus’s press secretary, the US State Department, and the US Embassy in Dhaka.
The context of the meeting includes heightened scrutiny from the Trump administration. “Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, has echoed dubious allegations from India that the new government persecutes Hindus and harbors Islamist terrorists,” the column said.
The apparent implication of the Musk meeting, it added, “was that one of the world’s largest textile exporters would not be able to get favorable trade terms from the United States if Starlink wasn’t allowed entry into the Bangladeshi market.”
But Bangladeshi officials have shrugged off suggestions of a diplomatic quid pro quo, instead championing Starlink as a safeguard against future internet shutdowns — a tactic used by the former Awami League government during protests.
Late last month the country’s telecoms regulator reportedly issued Starlink a ten‑year operating licence, clearing the way for the satellite‑internet provider to enter Bangladesh’s fast‑growing digital market.
Yunus and Rahman later spent 90 minutes on a videoconference with Musk and Starlink executive Richard Griffiths, during which Yunus invited Musk to Bangladesh to witness the system’s launch. He posted on X that he had a “great meeting” with Musk and looked forward to working with him.●