The tech entrepreneur has said US President Donald Trump was right to hold talks with Russia without Kiev’s approval
A poll suggesting that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky is popular at home was rigged in his favor, billionaire Elon Musk, a key ally of US President Donald Trump, has claimed.
“It should be utterly obvious that a Zelensky-controlled poll about his OWN approval is not credible!!” Musk wrote on X on Thursday. The post was in response to an unsourced claim on X that the US government provided grants to the Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), which released a poll suggesting that 57% of Ukrainians have confidence in Zelensky.
“If Zelensky was actually loved by the people of Ukraine, he would hold an election,” he added, claiming that Zelensky is “despised by the people of Ukraine” and “would lose in a landslide.”
“I challenge Zelensky to hold an election and refute this. He will not,” he wrote.
The owner of SpaceX, Tesla, and X went on to argue that Trump was “right to ignore” Zelensky and should pursue a deal with Russia independently.
The public feud between Trump and Zelensky erupted earlier this month after Ukrainian and EU officials said they were blindsided by Trump’s decision to restore direct negotiations with Russia. Zelensky, who was not invited to the US-Russia talks in Riyadh on Tuesday, claimed that the US president is “living in Russian disinformation space.”
Trump responded by labeling Zelensky, whose five-year presidential term expired last year, “a dictator,” and said he failed to achieve a ceasefire with Moscow. He also claimed that Zelensky’s approval rating is 4%.
According to the KIIS, Zelensky’s popularity surged to 90% during the initial months of the conflict in 2022 and has since fluctuated between 60% and 50%. Polls also consistently suggest that if an election is held, Zelensky would lose to Ukraine’s former top general, Valery Zaluzhny, who is now the ambassador to the UK.
Ukrainian officials have insisted that it is impossible to hold a new election under martial law. Russian President Vladimir Putin has stated that he no longer considers Zelensky the legitimate leader. Trump also recently said Ukraine should hold an election.
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