Elon Musk said on Wednesday that he is not in a relationship with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, responding to a joke after a photo of the two taking a tender snap at an event in New York this week made headlines on both sides of the Atlantic.

Photos of the two made the rounds on social media shortly after Musk presented Meloni with the Global Citizen Award from the Atlantic Council think tank on Monday. The New York Post called it a “public romance” between the world’s richest man and Italy’s first female prime minister.

“I was there with my mom. No romance with Prime Minister Meloni,” Musk wrote on X in response to a post with a photo of the two gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes during dinner and a comment “We all know what happened next.”

In a speech before the award, Musk said that Meloni is “even more beautiful on the inside than on the outside.” From her side, Meloni returning the compliment said that the American businessman is a “precious genius”.

Meloni, who split from her long-term partner in 2023, asked Musk to be the person to present her with the award, while the businessman flew to Italy twice last year to meet the Italian prime minister – in June and December .