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Elon Musk is Vladimir Putin’s best weapon: The world’s richest man is coordinating with the world’s most dangerous dictator (www.thebulwark.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by tardigrada to c/politics

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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The most concerning elements of Musk’s role in Trump’s campaign, and in Trump’s potential second administration, have arguably nothing to do with Musk tanking the American economy or causing what he calls “hardship” by gutting the federal government. They have instead to do with underremarked revelations from last week: As the Wall Street Journal reported, Musk is in “regular contact” with Russian despot Vladimir Putin, acting as a back-channel with Moscow.

[...]

For years, he has increasingly regurgitated Kremlin talking points, especially regarding Ukraine. In late 2022, with Russian troops starting to be pushed out of much of eastern Ukraine, Musk began broadcasting Kremlin talking points to halt Ukrainian advances. He started peddling Russian propaganda claims that Ukrainian territories like Crimea are “absolutely seen as a core part of Russia by Russia”—and that Russia would resort to nuclear war if Crimea was threatened by Kyiv. He further peddled a supposed “peace plan” that would not only return Ukraine to neutrality—the same neutrality Ukraine enjoyed when Russia first invaded in 2014—but further force Ukraine to give up its claims to Crimea.

[...]

For those familiar with the region and Russian politics, Musk’s additional calls to have Ukrainian water flow to the peninsula, while also dubbing Ukraine’s claims to Crimea as “Khruschev’s mistake,” were immediate red flags, directly parroting Kremlin rhetoric. “It’s very clear that Elon Musk is transmitting a message for Putin,” Russia expert Fiona Hill said at the time. Soon thereafter, we learned that Musk had specifically blocked a Ukrainian military mission from targeting the peninsula, with Musk waffling in the face of Russian nuclear threats—arguably the only time Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling has actually worked.

[...]

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[–] Gaywallet 3 points 2 weeks ago

Genuinely asking, because I always assume US billionaires are effectively untouchable

They're certainly less touchable because they mostly exist outside of normal spaces - private drivers, private planes, curating who's at events, etc. They're not untouchable so much as it's too much annoyance/effort to deal with them. I mean, hell, the very idea of a hired assassin is basically entirely made up by Hollywood. The military assassinates people all the time during war and coups on foreign soil (albeit a lot less than they used to) and civil disrupt in the homeland, but that's because they have the backing of a government to protect them. There are some rare targeted instances of sabotage (Havana syndrome may be a modern version of that) but those are also suspected to be tied to government. Any overt assassinations in another first world country, even if backed by a strong military, would likely be considered tantamount to a declaration of war, and I cannot imagine a situation in which it would not be difficult to figure out that another country was behind it.