Elon Musk called a decorated navy pilot and US Senator a traitor for posting about Ukraine and in turn got a gentle rap on the nose on X, the South African-origin billionaire’s social media platform that suffered an outage Monday.
In an interview with Fox News, Musk linked the X (formerly Twitter) outage to “IP addresses from the Ukraine area.”
Before that, the Tesla and SpaceX owner posted “You are a traitor.” It was in response to a thread by US Senator Mark Kelly (Democrat, Arizona) on his Ukraine visit.
Kelly, whose modest bio on X reads “United States Senator for Arizona. Father, husband, Navy combat veteran, and retired NASA astronaut,” gave it back to Musk.
“Traitor?
“Elon, if you don’t understand that defending freedom is a basic tenet of what makes America great and keeps us safe, maybe you should leave it to those of us who do,” Kelly wrote.
His thread on Ukraine – that Musk replied to, calling him a traitor – said: “Just left Ukraine. What I saw proved to me we can’t give up on the Ukrainian people. Everyone wants this war to end, but any agreement has to protect Ukraine’s security and can’t be a giveaway to Putin. Let me tell you about my trip and why it’s important we stand with Ukraine.”
He had written: “This war started with what Putin thought would be a three-day operation to take Kyiv and control of all of Ukraine. Now three years later, that hasn't happened. American and allied support has been a big reason why, but I saw how cutting it off now risks everything so many Ukrainians have laid down their lives for. And while our support hasn’t been free, we haven’t sent even half of what President Trump says.”
In his long thread Kellyl, a member of the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee, minced no words and called the Russian President a war criminal who routinely targets hospitals.
“Donald Trump is trying to weaken Ukraine’s hand and we are owed an explanation. If Putin gains ground he won’t agree to a ceasefire and will eventually threaten a NATO ally and this puts American troops and the American people at risk,” he wrote.
“I met with Ukrainian pilots, one who I had met in Arizona when he was learning to fly the F-16. They are flying challenging combat missions against the Russians who are protected by a considerable electronic warfare and surface to air missile system defense. They’ve learned a lot and they are getting better and having more success. When Trump cut off these pilots from US intelligence that they need to plan their missions, he blinded them to the threat and put them and their aircraft at risk. But worse than that, it helps the Russians advance further into Ukrainian territory and murder more Ukrainians. President Trump says the Russians are “hitting them hard” in a tone of voice that implies approval. It is sickening to see from an American President. “Hitting them hard” means more dead Ukrainian kids.”
In one post, he wrote: “The world will become a very cold and lonely place if we continue this ridiculous “screw you, go it alone” foreign policy. It’s dumb and it won’t age well and puts you and your kids and your grandkids at risk. America is the strongest, richest country in the world. We didn’t get there by being bullies like Putin, we got there by leading from the front and bringing our allies. That’s why I’ll continue to share with everyone who will listen why we must keep supporting Ukraine.”
Kelly, who was a combat pilot in a 25-year US Navy career, was asked about Musk’s “traitor” comment by reporters. His reply was: "Obviously, he's not a serious guy."
Clearly, the war in the US over the war in Ukraine has just begun.
