Poster boy: Six instances of Kremlin disinformation amplified through Elon Musk’s social network

The U.S. sponsoring terrorism

In February 2025, Elon Musk launched his crusade against USAID. Before that, he had never mentioned the agency in any context. The billionaire accused USAID of wasting taxpayer money, spreading “leftist propaganda,” and exerting political influence in various countries — roughly the same rhetoric Russian politicians, officials, and propagandists have used to describe the agency for the past decade.

In 2019, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated: “A voice from the past — the Cold War era — was heard in Washington when the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Mark Green, spoke… USAID is not aimed at fostering cooperation on the world stage; it is a tool of ideological struggle and propaganda.” In 2024, Russian lawmaker Andrei Lugovoy said on Vladimir Solovyov’s program: “About 100 media outlets operating in friendly republics have been identified as exclusively engaged in anti-Russian propaganda on behalf of the West to create centers of influence.” Lugovoy, who stands credibly accused of carrying out the 2006 polonium poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, concluded that Russia should create its own agency to influence politics in other countries.

For Russian propaganda, the USAID logo became proof of “America’s destructive influence” in Ukraine. In February 2023, during a Vesti broadcast, a man introduced as a Russian National Guard officer displayed booklets printed with USAID’s support. He described publications about farming development as “propaganda literature aimed at inciting hatred against everything Russian.”

By 2024, Putin went so far as to accuse the U.S. of financing terrorists in the North Caucasus in the early 2000s. Notably, during the actual early 2000s, he never made such accusations and instead maintained outwardly friendly relations with the U.S. It is possible that Putin’s statements were a form of “projection,” given that under his leadership, Russia itself has indeed funded terrorist attacks against the U.S.