Elon Musk met Iran's ambassador to the UN a day before he was made joint head of Donald Trump's new cost cutting department, the BBC's US partner CBS has confirmed.

A U.S. official says Iran successfully sought a meeting with Elon Musk in a step that appeared aimed at easing tensions with President-elect Donald Trump

Elon Musk recently met with Iran's ambassador to the U.N., Amir Saeid Iravani, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. The meeting took place at the ambassador's residence in New York. There's no indication that President-elect Donald Trump's national security transition team was aware of the meeting.

Many high-profile X users are leaving after Elon Musk's efforts to elect Donald Trump, adding to a new era of fragmented social media.

Bluesky has added 1.5 million users over the past week as former President Donald Trump’s election victory prompted users to flee X, the platform owned by Trump ally Elon Musk.

Bluesky appeared to crash on Thursday amid a surge in users as they apparently fled Elon Musk's X / Twitter. A status page for the Twitter alternative said some systems were down as of about 5:15 p.m.