At the beginning of October 2023, publications appeared that after a joke addressed to the President of Ukraine, the American billionaire was included in the list of people posing a threat to the country’s national security. We found out if this is true.
Similar posts appeared on social networks on October 2, 2023. Most often, they consist of a screenshot (or part of it) allegedly taken on the “Peacemaker” website, which contains the information of the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. Usually the image is accompanied by the following text: “The American businessman Elon Musk, whose company is actually provided APU stable satellite communications." At the same time, occasionally the authors of posts addthat Mask was removed from the database within 15 minutes.
Such posts were most widespread on Telegram. They appeared in the channels "Ne.Sugar"(289,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), "Uncle Slava"(215,000), "Truthfulness"(206,000), "Bullet"(152,000), Voblya (139,000), Zergulio (127,000), "Z-News | Army 🅉 18+"(115,000), "Ivan Utenkov"(103,000), "Peacemaker"(90,000), "Yakov Kedmi"(77,000), "Release the Kraken!"(65,000), "Tucker Carlson"(63,000), "Military observer"(56,000), "Live broadcast"(46,000, deleted), "First patriotic"(46,000), "Ax | Policy" (43,000), "Reports by Yuri Podolyaki"(41,000), TG Team Russia (39,000) and "Denazification UA"(28,000). Among the media and news sites, the addition of Musk to the list of enemies of Ukraine was reported Pravda.ru, "Constantinople", "Zov Kherson" And Vologda-search. You can also find such posts on VKontakte (examples here And here).
On the night of October 2, 2023, on his social network X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk posted meme, which at the time of writing this analysis has received more than 90 million views. The image is based on a now viral photo a schoolboy with bulging veins - it is usually used in jokes about people who really want to do or say something. In Musk's version, the teenager's face is replaced with that of Vladimir Zelensky, and the text reads: "When five minutes have passed and you haven't asked for a billion dollars in help."
The reaction of the Ukrainian side was not long in coming. Thus, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk reposted Musk's tweet with the caption: "That time when the dude tried to conquer space, but something went wrong, and within five minutes he was deep in shit," and the official account Verkhovna Rada Ukraine posted (post has already been deleted) a similar meme with a portrait of a businessman and an accusation of disseminating Russian propaganda. At the same time, in the pro-Kremlin segment of the Internet there were suggestions that Musk would now be added to the “Peacemaker” database. For example, such posts appeared in Telegram channels Zergulio And "Vladimir Rogov"
Website "Peacemaker" appeared in 2014. The resource, run by activists, positions itself as “a center for research into signs of crimes against the national security of Ukraine, peace, human security and international law and order.” The site contains an unofficial list of people whom the compilers consider enemies of the country.
The viral screenshot was allegedly taken on Musk’s page in the Peacemaker database. Moreover, instead of a real photo of the entrepreneur, there is an image of him in a hat with earflaps and a balalaika, most likely generated by a neural network. The billionaire's data includes date of birth (06/28/1971), country of residence (USA), address (for some reason Muscovy) and telephone number (X). The following are the reasons for adding Musk to the “black list”: “Insults and bashing of President Vladimir Zelensky, supplying the Internet with new memes about Ukraine, supporting the violation of the territorial integrity of the state, supporting Transcarpathian separatists, promoting Hungarian values, complicit in the crimes of the Russian government against Ukraine and its citizens.”
However, a search on the site did not produce any results. "Verified" searched for both Russian, and by English spelling of the name, but Musk’s profile is not on the site. None copies of such page in archives Internet.
Of course, if we assume that the entry about Mask was actually removed from the site after 15 minutes, then it will not appear in the search results. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this analysis, the earliest entries in the database update history date back to October 4, and the businessman was allegedly added to the list two days earlier. But you can understand that the screenshot with Musk is faked by indirect signs. For example, the profile first indicates the billionaire’s English-language name, and then his last name, although on the website used reverse order. There is no photo under personal data, which should repeat main profile picture. In addition, the same screenshot is being distributed on the Internet.
Thus, the reports about the inclusion of Elon Musk in the database of the Peacemaker center are a fake that appeared after the scandal associated with the billionaire’s tweet. At the same time, this is not the first time in recent years that a businessman has been “put on” this list. Thus, twice the satirical publication Panorama wrote about adding Musk to the “Peacemaker” database (in 2021 And 2022 years) and satirical Telegram channel That's news (and also on "Peekaboo"). On October 14, 2022, another one appeared fake screenshot that some users continued distribute and in October 2023.
Earlier this year, against the background of other political conflicts, similar fake screenshots were distributed, according to which the President of Poland was included in the list of enemies of Ukraine Andrzej Duda and the Pope Francis.
Cover photo: collage “Verified” / social networks
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