Elon Musk is once again under fire for comments about Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this time for appearing to conflate the situation on Kyiv’s international border with that of the US.
JOIN US ON TELEGRAM
Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
In a post on X, he asked: “Why do so many American politicians from both parties care 100 times more about the Ukraine border than the USA border?”
At the US border, thousands of largely peaceful migrants are crossing in the hopes of claiming asylum in the US.
At the Ukrainian border, tens of thousands of Russian troops have crossed hoping to illegally annex an entire country in what one Moscow general has described as a ‘stepping stone’ to invade Europe.
There was no shortage of people in the replies to his tweet willing to point out what Musk appeared to be missing.
“Ukraine is preventing a much wider war by stopping russia from invading NATO territory. Ukraine fights for us all,” wrote Paul Massaro.
“Because the southern border isn’t being invaded by an enemy nation state with the desire and ability to commit genocide of our people, Elon,” the writer Louise Mensch replied.
“Why does the world's richest businessman sound like a MAGA bot, spewing out automated right-wing talking points?” wrote journalist Mehdi Hasan.
Writer Vladislav Davidzon simply replied: “This is not a legitimate question mate.”
‘Keeping Commerce Human’ – Exclusive Interview with Etsy CEO on Operations in Ukraine
It’s far from the first time Musk has been in hot water over his views on Ukraine – earlier this month he wrote “So much death for so little,” in a post about Ukraine's counteroffensive, apparently in agreement with another post by David Sacks, a venture capitalist and friend of Musk who has criticized US support for Ukraine.
Elsewhere, a senate probe has been launched calling for a review of any incidents where Space X or others have disabled Ukrainian services following the revelation that Musk had not extended the private Starlink satellite network to aid Kyiv’s attack on Russian warships in Ukrainian waters near the Crimean coast.
Musk said he made the decision fearing that Moscow would retaliate with nuclear weapons.
“If I had agreed to their request, then SpaceX would be explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation,” Musk said.
The move triggered an immediate backlash in Ukraine.
“Sometimes a mistake is more than just a mistake. By not allowing Ukrainian drones to destroy part of the Russian military (!) fleet via Starlink interference, Elon Musk allowed this fleet to fire Kalibr missiles at Ukrainian cities. As a result, civilians, children are being killed. This is the price of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote.
In an op-ed published in The Guardian earlier this month, American historian Timothy Snyder was also highly critical of the multibillionaire.
“The Ukrainians took this decision under stress, since if a weapon were detonated it would be on their territory.
Musk, who was in no danger of any kind, chose instead to give in to nuclear blackmail, thereby encouraging more of it,” Snyder wrote.
Snyder argued that Musk’s decisions gave Russians time to build more fortifications and lay the mines that are now slowing Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Ukraine has recently been having success with its grinding counteroffensive. Earlier this month, the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) announced the liberation of the villages of Andriivka and Klishchiivka respectively – each setting the stage for a possible assault on the Russian-occupied city of Bakhmut.
You can also highlight the text and press Ctrl + Enter
