Musk echoes Kremlin points on Ukraine as he vows changes to Xâs Community Notes
Threatened changes to Community Notes come as Trump administration has sought to falsely portray Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as a â??dictatorâ??
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Elon Musk on Thursday echoed false Kremlin claims that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is a âdictatorâ and vowed to change Xâs Community Notes feature, after accusing âgovernments and legacy mediaâ of gaming the crowd-sourced fact-checking feature amid the Trump administrationâs ongoing public spat with the Ukrainian leader.
The comments come in response to a post from an anonymous X account, taking issue with recent polling from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology showing Zelensky with high levels of support, arguing that âU.S. intelligenceâ suggests the Ukrainian leader only has four percent support, a differential the poster claimed was because the institute was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the foreign aid agency that Musk has repeatedly claimed without evidence is a âcriminal organization.â
The sociology institute has in fact received past support from USAID, an agency Muskâs company Starlink also once collaborated with in Ukraine.
âWorking to fix this â¦It should be utterly obvious that a Zelensky-controlled poll about his OWN approval is not credible!!â Musk wrote in response. âIf Zelensky was actually loved by the people of Ukraine, he would hold an election. He knows he would lose in a landslide, despite having seized control of ALL Ukrainian media, so he canceled the election.â
âIn reality, he is despised by the people of Ukraine, which is why he has refused to hold an election,â Musk claimed, without providing evidence. âI challenge Zelensky to hold an election and refute this. He will not.â
These statements, as well as the original post they are based on, appear to be inaccurate and lacking context, and Ukraine experts argued such claims are playing into Russiaâs heavily distorted narrative of its invasion of the country. They also represent the growing distance between Ukraine and the U.S., which has begun negotiating over the war with Russia without Ukraine, including a high-level meeting this week in Saudi Arabia.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump have claimed in recent days the Ukrainian president is an unpopular âdictator,â despite public polls showing he retains wide support ( Reuters)Donald Trump did claim this week that Zelensky is at four percent support, though he did not provide any basis for that claim.
âWell, we have a situation where we havenât had elections in Ukraine; where we have martial law, essentially martial law, in Ukraine; where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but heâs down at 4% percent approval rating,â Trump told reporters, the same day he claimed Zelensky was a âdictator.â
Trump has also claimed in recent days Zelensky âstartedâ the war with Russia, even though it was Russia that invaded Ukraine in 2022, after years of backing armed separatists seizing territory across the east of the country.
Experts, including those at the sociology institute, have found that Zelensky has greater than majority support, with a recent survey finding that 57 percent of Ukrainians trusted the president.
Keith Darden, an American University professor who studies Ukraine, told CNN the private institute is considered âthe best and most reliable survey organization in Ukraine,â and its findings are quoted in U.S. and Ukrainian media.
Professor Olga Onuch of The University of Manchester, who regularly conducts survey work in Ukraine, including alongside the sociology institute, has said Trump and Muskâs claims do not reflect the leaderâs current support in Ukraine.
âTrumpâs claim is not only factually incorrect, but also irresponsible and anti-democratic â Zelensky remains a fairly popular political leader in Ukraine,â she said in an interview with the universityâs website. âSpreading misinformation about his legitimacy directly aids Kremlin propaganda and undermines the Ukrainian peopleâs right to determine their own future.â
Zelensky hits back at Trump misinformationZelensky said on Wednesday that claims heâs a dictator are âcoming from Russia.â
âIf anyone wants to replace me right now, then it just isnât going to happen,â he said at a news conference. âI wish Trumpâs team had more truth. Because none of this is having a positive effect on Ukraine.â
Indeed, Russian leaders have praised the White House, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying that Trump âunderstands our position.â
ââA Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.â If you'd told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud,â former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev wrote on X. â@realDonaldTrump is 200 percent right. Bankrupt clownâ¦â
Ukrainian and international leaders expressed their support for Zelensky after the claims from Trump and Musk, and argued the White House is playing into Putinâs hands.
âWe may like Zelensky, or we may not. We may scold him, or we may praise him. We may condemn his actions, or we may applaud them. Because he is OUR president, as he is,â Borys Filatov, mayor of the city of Dnipro, wrote on Facebook. âIt makes no difference whether he is bad or not. And no lying creature, neither in Moscow, nor in Washington, nor anywhere, has the right to open his mouth against him.â
Former Lithuanian foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told The Washington Post the White Houseâs stance sounds like a âhandoutâ prepared by Lavrov.
Following Trumpâs comments, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer affirmed his position that Zelensky is the countryâs "democratically elected leader,â and argued it is "perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during wartime as the U.K. did during World War II.â Britain did not hold elections between 1935 and 1945 because of the Second World War.
Ukraine declared martial law in 2022 when Russia invaded, and the countryâs laws prevent it from holding elections when in this emergency status.
Thereâs little chance the country could hold a free and representative election in its current state, given that Russia occupies nearly a fifth of the country, millions of Ukrainians have fled the nation, and tens of thousands of citizens are deployed to the frontlines.
International observers noted it is Russia that is the true dictatorship, not Ukraine.
"We have a fairly straightforward and clear position on this: President Zelensky was legitimately elected in free, fair and democratic elections," EU spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker told reporters this week.
"Ukraine is a democracy, Putin's Russia is not."
Vladimir Putin has ruled Russia for the past quarter-century, and has engineered changes to the constitution to remain in power until at least 2036. His political opponents are routinely jailed or even killed, such as Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov.
Others took issue with Muskâs intention to change Community Notes, a popular fact-checking feature.
âThe entire point of the community notes system is that it's independent of the personal views of the people running this platform,â Shayan Sardarizadeh, from the BBCâs Verify team, wrote on X. âIf you start tampering with the system because you personally dislike some notes, then how could users continue to trust it?â
The Independent has contacted X for comment.
Musk, who has long framed himself as a champion of online free speech, has touted Community Notes as an effective tool to maintain factual discourse on X without resorting to top-down speech guidelines.
âCommunity Notes aims to help all people better understand issues discussed in posts, including people who may hold different viewpoints,â the companyâs website reads. âContribute in a way that even those who may disagree with you might find helpful and respectful. Avoid hateful, derogatory, or inflammatory language.â
As The Independent has reported, in practice, Muskâs commitment to free speech and fact-based discussion only goes so far.
The billionaire has called for a boycott of Wikipedia in protest at a change to his page regarding his alleged Nazi salute at the Trump inauguration, and he frequently traffics in inaccurate, unsourced, or fully untrue claims on his own X account. This week he said that journalists working on CBS Newsâs 60 Minutes âdeserve a long prison sentenceâ because of edits to an interview with Kamala Harris that industry insiders say were routine.
âHe is the worldâs leading free speech hypocrite,â Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, recently told The Independent. âAnd his actions with respect to Wikipedia are further evidence of that.
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