Elon Musk denies he spoke to Putin about Ukraine war

In isolation, no. But this + someone explicitly saying Musk told them he spoke to Putin is more convincing.

This is all a bit of a side show, though, for all the reasons you outlined.

It would be nice if those who were not knowledgeable about things would at least proceed on that basis. When combined with confirmation bias and a pinch of paranoia, it leads to a lot of people patting themselves on the back for being "contrarians". In fact they are not merely dead wrong, but incapable of evaluating the notion that they might be wrong.