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Elon Musk claims Ukraine’s president doesn’t grasp the severity of Gonzalo Lira’s “murder.”
Elon Musk, the billionaire and ally of Donald Trump, has again criticized Vladimir Zelensky, asserting that the Ukrainian president doesn’t understand that killing American journalist Gonzalo Lira was “bad.”
Lira, a filmmaker and blogger of Chilean descent, died in a Ukrainian jail in early 2024 while awaiting trial for allegedly “systematically justifying the Russian aggression.” Lira, who had lived in Ukraine since 2010, had been very critical of Zelensky’s administration.
Musk posted on X on Saturday that “Zelensky should not have murdered an American journalist. He didn’t even understand why that was bad.” Earlier in the week, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO directly accused Zelensky of “killing” the blogger.
Lira’s coverage of the conflict between Kiev and Moscow on his YouTube channel led to trouble with Ukrainian authorities, who accused him of spreading “Russian propaganda.”
Lira had criticized Western media’s portrayal of Ukraine as a “democracy,” citing widespread corruption and listing Zelensky’s opponents who he claimed had been “disappeared” by the authorities.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) initially arrested Lira in May 2023. He was released on bail three months later, alleging systematic torture during his imprisonment. He was re-arrested later that year after skipping bail and trying to flee to Hungary for asylum. At the time, his father suggested that US authorities had given “at least tacit approval of Gonzalo’s arrest.”
Following Lira’s death in prison, his family blamed Kiev, but Ukrainian authorities denied any wrongdoing.
Musk’s renewed attack on Zelensky, despite his prior comments on the Lira case, occurs amid a tense dispute between Kiev and Washington.
Zelensky and Trump, along with other prominent officials, have been exchanging accusations publicly. Zelensky, for example, accused Trump of “living in a disinformation bubble” allegedly created by Russia, after Trump rejected a proposed deal to grant the US access to Ukraine’s rare earths as compensation for military aid.
Trump has called Zelensky a “dictator without elections,” noting that his presidential term expired in May 2024 and claiming that Zelensky’s approval rating in Ukraine was very low.
Other high-ranking US officials rebuked Kiev for disrespecting Washington and insisted that Ukraine sign the rare earths agreement or face consequences.