Elon Musk was roundly praised by Russian neo-Nazis and warmongers on Wednesday after audio was circulated that purported to capture him calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a “butcher.”
“I think [top Ukrainian general Valerii] Zaluzhny is definitely someone who values the lives of his people. And takes a sober look at what’s going on. Zelensky has long lived in his butcher’s reality, and that reality doesn’t match the reality,” Musk was quoted as saying.
A brief audio clip, purportedly from a discussion on Twitter Spaces, appeared to capture a man who certainly sounded like Musk making those remarks. But beyond that clip, there was no evidence of the Twitter Spaces discussion in question, and Musk didn’t immediately respond to a query on the social media platform regarding the authenticity of the audio.
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The diss against Zelensky was feverishly shared early Wednesday by pro-Kremlin propagandists, who suggested that the sentiment by one of the world’s most influential billionaires was proof the world was fed up with Ukraine. Oddly, the warm words for Zaluzhny, ostensibly from Musk, came amid reported infighting between Zelensky’s team and Zaluzhny after the top general publicly warned that the war with Russia had reached a “stalemate.”
Telegram channels linked to both Russia’s Wagner Group and its neo-Nazi paramilitary group Rusich excitedly shared Musk’s quote, with the latter also hailing the Tesla CEO for “speaking the truth” and then promoting a new Telegram channel offering all of Musk’s tweets translated into Russian.
Pro-Russian blogger Anatoliy Shariy gushed that Musk was “like a breath of fresh air.” The audio was also shared on the Telegram channel of Kremlin press pool reporter Dmitry Smirnov, and that of Russian propagandist Sergei Mardan. The rabidly pro-Kremlin Telegram channel DD Geopolitics was also among the first sources to circulate the audio.
Musk has been known to regurgitate Kremlin talking points, and has increasingly seemed to blame Ukraine for the war as it fends off Russian attacks, recently arguing in a podcast that Zelensky should not “send the flower of Ukrainian youth to die in trenches.”
In that same interview, with Russian-American podcaster Lex Fridman, he said, “We should have some sympathy for the Russian boys as well as the Ukrainian boys, because Russian boys … didn’t ask to be on their frontline. They have to be.”
