Billionaire Elon Musk Shared Memes Made by FSB Propaganda Machine
A journalistic investigation has revealed that the content was generated by a Russian propaganda machine set up to sow discord over the war in Ukraine.
Apu Gomes/Getty Images
Has Elon Musk’s careless posting finally caught up with him? Just one day after having to play off his horrific take on the second attempted assassination of Donald Trump as a “joke,” the Tesla CEO is back in the hot seat again for sharing anti-Ukrainian content that, as it turns out, was actually generated by a Russian psychological operations team. The meme in question, posted by Musk last October, features a strain-faced President Volodymyr Zelensky with the caption: “When it’s been 5 minutes and you haven’t asked for a billion dollars in aid.” Several outlets, including RFE/RL, have now obtained leaked documents that reveal the image had been created by the Social Design Agency. A Moscow-based company, the group was hired by the Kremlin to use propaganda and disinformation to sow discord over Western support for Ukraine amid the conflict. Who’s laughing now?
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