Establishment media have had to begrudgingly admit that Elon Musk has been on the mark when it comes to Ukraine, even as they continue to accuse him of being a tool for Russian President Putin.
“So, Musk may not be too wide of the mark after all,” wrote Jamie Dettmer in a piece for Politico, appearing to give the tech billionaire credit for predicting that Ukraine could not hope to prevail in a war of attrition against a much larger state like Russia.
Fiona Hill — a foreign affairs specialist whom former President Donald Trump considered an embodiment of the “Deep State” — took aim at Musk in a 2022 Politico interview, accusing him of kowtowing to Putin.
“Putin plays the egos of big men, gives them a sense that they can play a role. But in reality, they’re just direct transmitters of messages from Vladimir Putin,” she said of Musk.
However, the Dettmer piece admits Musk’s dire analysis of the situation in Ukraine does not differ markedly from the statements made more recently by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“With a history of urging Ukraine to agree to territorial concessions — and his opposition to the $60 billion U.S. military aid package snarled on Capitol Hill amid partisan wrangling — Musk isn’t Ukraine’s favorite commentator, to say the least. And his remarks received predictable pushback. But the billionaire entrepreneur’s forecast isn’t actually all that different from the dire warnings Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made in the last few days,” said Dettmer.
“[Zelenskyy] also warned that some major cities could be at risk of falling,” Dettmer noted, echoing Musk’s prediction that if the war goes on long enough, Odesa, the highly important port city on the Black Sea, could fall, effectively landlocking Ukraine.
The enigmatic tech investor has continued to prognosticate. However, his latest projection is perhaps his most ominous.
Commenting on U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s announcement last week that “Ukraine will become a member of NATO,” Musk said, “This is literally how the nuclear apocalypse movie starts.” He then added a clip of the 1983 made-for-TV film The Day After, about a nuclear war between NATO and the Soviet Union.