When the Italian journalist was arrested in Iran in December, her boyfriend back home feared she could spend years in prison. So, he says, amid talk that Iran and Italy were negotiating a prisoner exchange involving the United States, he decided to try to get the message to someone who might be in a position to help.

His name was Elon Musk.

Not only was Mr. Musk close to President-elect Donald J. Trump, a month before the journalist was detained, the tech billionaire had secret meeting with the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations.

Last week it was journalist Cecilia Sala, 29 released from prison in Iran, and a few days later an Iranian engineer who was arrested by Italy based on an American extradition request was also released. The engineer is accused of providing the material for the drones used in an attack by an Iran-backed militia on a US military base that killed three US soldiers.

Mr. Musk helped secure Ms. Sala’s release by contacting Iran’s UN ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, according to two Iranian officials, one of whom is a senior diplomat in the Foreign Ministry, both of whom are familiar with the prisoner’s conditions. exchange. They asked that their names not be published because it is a sensitive topic.

Nor Mr. Neither Musk nor representatives of the Trump transition responded to repeated requests for comment.

It remains unclear how Mr. Musk, an increasingly active player without credibility on the world stage since Trump’s victory, took the journalistic initiative. He is close to Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni, who traveled to Mar-a-Lagothe Trump estate in Florida, where Mr. Musk was a regular guest, and met with the president-elect on January 4.

Ms. Meloni said at a press conference last week that Ms. Sala’s release was the result of “complex work of diplomatic triangulation with Iran, and apparently also with the United States of America”. Her office and Italy’s foreign ministry declined to comment for this article.

A senior Biden administration official said the US government was not consulted on the negotiations, was not given advance notice of the release and did not approve of the deal. John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said the deal was an “Italian soup-to-nuts decision.”

At the news conference, Ms. Meloni said she did not know what role, if any, Mr. Musk had in Ms. Sale’s release. “If he had a role, I’m not aware of it,” she said.

The ambiguity emphasizes the unusual role that Mr. Musk plays while sitting next to Mr. Trump, supporting far-right parties in Europe although he continues to promote his business interests abroad. Italy, for example, is currently investigating a potential contract with Mr. Musk’s Space X to provide secure communications for government and military officials via Starlink. And Mrs. Meloni was one of the ever-present European allies of Mr. Muska, hosted him at her party’s 2023 conference and attended a gala with him last October.

By the time Ms. Meloni traveled to Mar-a-Lago, Ms. Sala’s boyfriend, Daniele Raineri, had already sought Mr. Musk’s help through an intermediary, he said. In an interview, Mr. Raineri said he thought of him because he read that there was “a channel between Musk and Iranian diplomats, and that Musk also works in close contact with Trump.”

Mr. Raineri, who is also a journalist, said that on December 29 he sent a message to an Italian computer expert and associate of Mr. Muska to ask him if he could draw the billionaire’s attention to the case of Ms. Sala and ask for his help.

A computer expert, Andrea Stroppa, said in an interview that Mr. Musk had accepted the request, but that he did not know whether he had become involved in the case.

In November, weeks before Ms. Sala was arrested, Mr. Musk met for more than an hour with Iran’s ambassador at the Iranian residence in Manhattan to discuss easing tensions between Tehran and Washington as the new administration prepared to take office.

Iranian officials spoken to for this article said Mr. Musk contacted the ambassador again shortly after Prime Minister Meloni visited Mar-a-Lago.

The exchange of prisoners between Iran and Italy then proceeded rapidly. Ms. Sala was released by Iran on January 8, followed by Italy four days later released the Iranian engineerMohammad Abedini Najafabadi.

Mr. Abedini was detained at the request of the US Department of Justice. A federal court in Massachusetts charged him with procuring drone technology to Iran that was used in the attack at the American base, which was in Jordan, in January 2024. Two Iranian officials said that Mr. Musk, when he spoke to the ambassador, demanded that Iran release Ms. Sala and assured him that the United States would not pressure Italy to extradite the Iranian engineer.

Iran’s mission to the UN declined to comment on the recent engagement of Mr. Musk and the ambassador. The statement said that the two detainees were released as a result of “bilateral cooperation and coordinated efforts of the political and intelligence sectors of Iran and Italy.”

All sides are cautious in public about what happened, but to many observers, the quick release of the prisoners after the meeting of Mr. Trump and Ms. Meloni suggested that the topic had been discussed and that a solution had been reached.

“The most likely reconstruction is that she got a signal from Trump that the new administration will not cause big problems if it lets Abedini go,” said Ferdinando Nelli Feroci, a former Italian diplomat.

.

Italy arrested Mr. Abedinija in mid-December while passing through the Milan airport. Three days later, agents from the intelligence wing of the Revolutionary Guard raided Ms. Sala’s hotel room in Tehran and threw her into solitary confinement in Evin prison. She traveled to Iran with a journalist’s visa.

A member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and two Iranian officials said the journalist was arrested to pressure Italy to release Mr. Abedinia. Iran did detention of foreigners and citizens with dual citizenship central part of its foreign policy for almost five decades..

“It doesn’t matter who you are,” Shahin Modarres, a Rome-based expert on Iran and international security, said in a phone interview. “You can be a journalist, a diplomat, a tourist.” He said: “It matters if Iran thinks it can use you as leverage.”

Ms. Sala said in an interview that she was kept in a cell without a mattress and that she slept on the floor with one blanket on top and another underneath. She was denied glasses for weeks, and during the entire detention she did not see a human face. She could hear the sounds of other inmates crying and vomiting, she said, and she was blindfolded and interrogated for hours almost every day, she said.

What she was most afraid of, she said, was “going crazy.”

Mr. Raineri, her boyfriend, said that on January 2, Ms. Meloni told Ms. Sala’s mother that there would be an important event in the next 48 hours.

Mr. Stroppa, a developer, gave hints about his account on X. He posted display of Mr. Trump, Ms. Meloni and Mr. Musk in ancient Roman garb on the day the prime minister visited Mar-a-Lago. And on the day Ms. Sala was released, he posted an AI-generated one a photo of Mr. Musk eating spaghetti with the Italian flag emoticon.

Ms Sala said she understood the Italian government had done what it had to do to free her. “And whoever they needed to talk to, they talked to,” she said.

Ryan Mac and Mattathias Schwartz contributed reporting.