US financial aid is “not good” for Ukrainians, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO said
There is “no way in hell” that Russia will suffer defeat in its conflict with Ukraine, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said.
Musk, one of the world’s richest men, made the comment on Monday during a discussion about a Senate bill aimed at providing additional US aid to Kiev on X Spaces – part of his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter).
He was joined by a number of other people opposed to further funding for Ukraine, including Republican lawmakers Ron Johnson, JD Vance and Mike Lee, former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and entrepreneur David Sacks.
”This spending doesn’t help Ukraine. Prolonging the war doesn’t help Ukraine,” the Tesla and SpaceX chief said, as quoted by Bloomberg.
He urged Americans to contact their elected representatives about the $95 billion emergency spending proposal, which includes $60 billion for Ukraine, as well as funding for Israel and Taiwan.
The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday, but it’s expected to have a hard time in the House of Representatives, where opposition to further funding for Kiev is much stronger among Republicans. They are demanding increased spending on security at the US-Mexico border.
Musk has been calling for a peaceful settlement of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and has criticized US military assistance to Kiev on many occasions during the two years of the fighting. He said that accusing him of being an apologist for Russian President Vladimir Putin over those statements was “absurd.”
His companies “have probably done more to undermine Russia than anything,” the entrepreneur claimed, noting that SpaceX had provided its Starlink internet service to Ukraine.
Musk said what he really desires is for deaths to stop on both the Ukrainian and Russian sides.
He also addressed some Western politicians who “want regime change in Russia,” saying “they should think about who is the person that could take out Putin, and is that person likely to be a peacenik? Probably not.” That person would likely be “even more hardcore than Putin,” he added.
The Russian leader spoke about Musk in his interview with independent US journalist Tucker Carlson last week, calling the entrepreneur “a smart person.”
“I think there’s no stopping Elon Musk, he will do as he sees fit,” Putin said, adding that his activities still need to be “formalized and subjected to certain rules.”
