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 an American lawyer and politician, Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee). He’s best-known for opposing the aid to Ukraine, undermining NATO by calling the US to withdraw from the alliance, and for fighting with a bunch of braindead dogs online.
1/21
Like many of the most vile vatniks out there, “Based Mike” is a lawyer by profession. He hails from the holy land of Mormons, Utah, where he faces little political competition, allowing him to make the most outrageous claims online without risking his Senate seat.
2/21
Before becoming a senator, Mike fought to let a nuclear waste company dump Italian radioactive waste in Utah, arguing it was fine if they just diluted it. The state said no, the public revolted, and the courts told poor Mikey to sit down.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce an American national security policy professional and the current under secretary of defense for policy, Elbridge Colby (@ElbridgeColby). He’s best-known for fighting with cartoon dogs online and for halting military aid to Ukraine.
1/21
Elbridge "Cheese" Colby earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. Before entering government, he worked at top think tanks and in the intelligence community, focusing on nuclear policy and strategic planning.
2/21
Cheese quickly became a key voice for a “China First” strategy, arguing the US must prioritize military buildup in Asia over commitments in Europe or the Middle East. He sees (or saw, rather) Taiwan as the core test of US credibility.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’m going to talk about… Vatnik Soup! As some of you know, we also have a website where you can find every soup ever published. The site also has other useful resources, making it the most comprehensive resource on Russian disinformation & vatniks.
1/15
Unfortunately, Elon has flagged the website as malware, as he might not be very happy about the soups I wrote about him - so far, they have garnered over 60 million views on X/Twitter.
The “freedom of speech” spokesperson doesn’t seem too keen on free speech, after all.
2/15
The heart & soul of the website is of course the soups page. There you can find all 360+ soups, which can be sorted chronologically, by popularity, etc. You can also search for soups by title or even in the soup text:
In today’s Wumao Soup, I’ll introduce how and where the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) online propaganda and influence operations work. Due to China’s massive population and advances in AI, CCP-aligned online content has become increasingly visible.
1/20
Like Russia’s troll farms, China has its own troll army: the “50 Cent Party” or “Wumao” refers to state-linked online commentators who are reportedly paid ¥0.50 per post to steer discussions away from criticism and amplify CCP narratives on social media.
2/20
Back in 2017, a research paper estimated that the Wumao produced almost 500 million fabricated comments annually to distract readers and shift topics. In that sense, Wumao operates very similarly to the Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” model:
In today’s Vatnik Soup and the “Degenerate Russia” series, I’ll show you the brutal reality of Russian war crimes, in particular the horrific tortures and sexual abuses of children, women and men.
Buckle up, this one is not for the faint-hearted.
1/24
For over a decade now and as part of their “firehose of falsehood” propaganda strategy, Russia has been spreading false narratives targeted at right-wing/conservative audiences, portraying russia as a bastion of Christian, traditional,family values.
In the previous “degenerate Russia” series we discussed Russia’s insanely high divorce rates, rampant domestic violence, high murder rates, thriving neo-Nazi culture, corruption of the Orthodox Church, and their massive demographic problem: