In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a South African-American(!) businessman and social media figure, Elon Musk (@elonmusk). He's best-known for being the wealthiest man in the world, running Tesla Inc., SpaceX & Twitter, and for parroting Kremlin's propaganda narratives.
1/24
Let's start with the obvious: Elon's tweets have enormous effect on Twitter & his tweets have a big audience. Every tweet he likes or comments gets a huge boost in the algorithm & is then shown to tens of millions of people.Some have called his replies a "stamp of approval".
2/24
He's promised to make Twitter the "most accurate source of information about the world," but strangely he's flirted with various conspiracy theories throughout the years. Among other things, he's denied the white supremacist background of a mass shooter, spread COVID-19...
3/24
...misinformation and parroted George Soros related conspiracy theories. A lot of Elon's views on various topics may actually come from other people. His ex-wife, @TalulahRiley called for unbanning of @TheBabylonBee, his friend @joerogan had previously called for a social...
4/24
..media platform that works like a "marketplace of ideas" - a philosophy where the "best" ideas from the likes of alleged human trafficker/rapist @cobratate & QAnon-affiliated @RepMTG rise to the top - & said that Musk should "liberate Twitter from the censorship happy mob".
5/24
When it comes to war,he seems to mostly listen to @davidsacks, among a few other disinformation peddlers. In Oct 2022, Musk tweeted about "Ukraine-Russia Peace", calling for UN-supervised elections in the annexed areas. He also stated that Crimea would remain part of Russia.
6/24
He then warned about escalation and the threat of nuclear war. A very similar peace plan was suggested by his "war room" buddy @davidsacks just week before Musk's tweet. He later backtracked, polling whether the people in Donbas & Crimea should "decide whether they want...
7/24
...to be part of Russia or Ukraine" - which they did already in 1991 as you can see from this Independence Referendum voting map.
In Jun 2023, @davidsacks blessed us with another long tweet, condemning the Ukrainian counteroffensive as a failure, while at the same time...
8/24
...praising Mearsheimer's realpolitik garbage. Musk commended his old friend's post, stating that it was "Well said."
Elon has also discredited @bellingcat, one of the biggest investigative groups fighting Russian disinformation, calling them a "psyop".
9/24
Bellingcat has exposed loads of Russian atrocities, including the down shooting of MH17, the identity of Russia's drone operators, and the Skripal poisonings.
For this, it has become number one target of defamation by the pro-Kremlin propagandists like @aaronjmate.
10/24
After Twitter introduced subscription service, one of Elon's first subscriptions on Twitter was @KanekoaTheGreat, a QAnon-affiliated conspiracy theorist known for pushing Kremlin narratives about Ukraine, especially about the country's ethnic "division".
11/24
He's also attended civil discussions on Twitter Spaces with pro-Kremlin propagandists like @KimDotcom and @stillgray. Incidentally, these Spaces rarely offer any real discussion, but are rather back-patting exercises of people who mostly agree with each other.
12/24
Musk has strongly promoted one of the biggest liars and Putin cheerleaders in the US media, Tucker Carlson. In the first episode of his new "show" on Twitter, Carlson implied that the Kakhovka Dam was destroyed by the Ukrainians without offering any solid proof.
13/24
These narratives are heavily promoted by Musk and his Twitter platform, promoting Russia's biggest adversaries as "psyops" and Ukraine as a corrupt nation ruled by far-right militias. As you know by now, they come directly from the Kremlin propaganda playbook.
14/24
Of course all this has been used for propaganda purposes by Russia, and these days Elon appears often on RT's headlines allegedly agreeing that the Ukrainian counterattack is failing and the 2014 Revolution of Dignity was a coup.
15/24
Elon has called himself a "politically moderate",but in 2022 clearly chose a side,saying that he could "no longer support" the Democrats due to their politics & encouraged people to vote Republicans in the midterms.DeSantis announced his run for presidency on Twitter Spaces.16/24
For some, Twitter has become more "free speech". But for others, not so much: On 13 Jun 2023, Musk-led Twitter suspended the Twitter account of Aaron Greenspan, a critic of both Tesla and Musk. His project, PlainSite, that shares court filings for free was also suspended.
17/24
Musk has removed plenty of barriers to slow down the spread of disinformation,including EU's voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation. At the same time, he's complied to censorship requests from Indian and Turkish ruling parties by removing and restricting content.
18/24
To conclude: Why is Musk pushing, among other things, the peace plan where Ukraine would lose a lot? My theory is that the war is bad for business. His businesses require a lot of raw materials, and both Russia & China are in the top 3 of the biggest raw material producers.
19/24
Tesla Inc.'s conflict mineral report from 2022 reveals that Russia (as well as China) is a country of origin for their gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten. Tesla has also been buying aluminum from Rusal since 2020. Rusal was founded by Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and it...
20/24
...accounts for almost 9% of the world's aluminum output. He was sanctioned by the Trump administration in Apr 2018 for alleged illegal wiretapping, extortion and racketeering, and he also allegedly ordered a murder of a businessman. The sanctions were later watered down...
21/24
...Trump and co. as they would "disrupt the aluminum markets" and Deripaska intended to invest 200 million USD in a Kentucky aluminum mill, but this plan eventually failed.
But business is business, even when it comes from a Russian oligarch, and I'm sure Elon knows this.
22/24
It would probably be impossible or extremely expensive to produce cars, rockets and other technology without the raw materials from Russia or China, and the US sanctions imposed on the former have probably already made it more difficult.
23/24
Maybe Elon just doesn't want to bite the hand that feeds his companies?I'm sure his lobbying power in the US will keep his businesses going even after his "anti-establishment" hot takes,but we will probably never see him criticizing the likes of Russia, CCP or Saudi Arabia.
24/24
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Ukrainian-born former State Duma deputy, Vladimir Medinsky. He is best known as one of the ideologues of the “Russkiy Mir”, for his close ties to Vladimir Putin, and for leading the “peace talks” in Turkey in 2022 and 2025.
1/20
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, Medinsky interned as a correspondent on the international desk of the TASS news agency, learning the ways of propaganda at an early age. Some time later, he earned two PhDs – one in political science and the other in history.
2/20
As is tradition in Russia, Medinsky’s academic work was largely pseudo-scientific and plagiarized. Dissernet found that 87 of 120 pages in his dissertation were copied from his supervisor’s thesis. His second dissertation was also heavily plagiarized.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American social media influencer, Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson). He’s best known for his plagiarism while working as a clickbait “journalist”, and for being paid by the Kremlin to spread anti-Ukraine and anti-Democratic narratives.
1/23
Benny graduated from the University of Iowa in 2009 with a degree in developmental psychology. His former high school buddy described him as the “smartest, most articulate kid in school,” and was disappointed to see him turn into a “cheating, low standard hack.”
2/23
After graduating, Benny dived directly into the world of outrage media. Benny’s first job was writing op-eds for far-right website Breitbart, from where he moved on to TheBlaze, a conservative media owned by Glenn Beck, and a spring board for many conservative influencers.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Cypriot politician and social media personality, Fidias Panayiotou (@Fidias0). He’s best known for his clickbait YouTube stunts and for voting against aid to Ukraine and the return of abducted Ukrainian children from Russia.
1/20
Fidias hails from Meniko, Cyprus. In 2019, he began posting videos on YouTube. After a slow start, he found his niche with clickbaity, MrBeast-style content featuring silly stunts, catchy titles and scripted dialogue. Today, Fidias has 2,7 million subscribers on YouTube.
2/20
Fidias’s channel started with trend-riding, but he found his niche in traveling without money — aka freeloading. In one video, he fare-dodged on the Bengaluru Metro. The train authority responded by saying they would file a criminal case against him.
In today’s May 9th Vatnik Soup, we discuss the ambiguous relationship of the Kremlin with Nazism and explain why so many vatniks can be outright Nazis, and promote or excuse them while at the same time being so hysterical about alleged “Nazis in Ukraine”.
1/23
Of course, Kremlin propaganda employs the Firehose of Falsehood and often lacks any consistent ideology other than spreading chaos and seeking power, so such contradictions can be commonplace. However in this case there is a certain cynical consistency there.
2/23
To understand modern Russia, we need to go back a hundred years to the beginnings of Soviet Russia/Soviet Union — a genocidal terror regime under dictators Lenin and Stalin, whose totalitarian and imperialist legacy Putin’s Russia fully embraces.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll discuss the state of X in May 2025. Since its acquisition by Elon Musk, this platform has rapidly transformed into his personal political tool and a breeding ground for hate speech and disinformation.
1/22
Not everyone is following this shitshow as closely as I am, so I thought it would be good to write a summary of all the changes that have happened on this forum and outside of it. These changes have drastically changed how the platform operates and who gets “a voice” here.
2/22
Elon’s team has been tweaking the algorithm many times after the takeover. One of these tweaks happened already around Nov 2022, when the platform heavily suppressed the visibility of pro-Ukraine accounts. This change was then noticed & reported by many pro-Ukraine accounts.
3/22
In today’s 350th Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American comedian and podcaster, Dave Smith (@ComicDaveSmith). He’s best-known for his numerous appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience and for his unhinged takes on the Russo-Ukrainian War.
1/22
Smith has a massive megaphone - he’s a good friend of Joe Rogan, and he’s appeared on Joe’s podcast a whopping 16 times. Naturally, he’s also visited Lex Fridman’s podcast and frequently appears on Fox News’ Kennedy and The Greg Gutfeld Show.
2/22
Dave is part of the Kremlintarian section of the Libertarian Party called Mises Caucus. They took control of the party in May 2022, and with the help of their new leader, Angela McArdle, turned it into an extension of the MAGA Republicans: