Sen. Graham Warns Elon Musk After He Calls for De-escalation of Ukraine War

Sen. Graham Warns Elon Musk After He Calls for De-escalation of Ukraine War
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in Washington on May 25, 2022; and Tesla CEO Elon Musk in a file photo (Ting Shen/Getty Images; Aly Song/Reuters)
Jack Phillips
10/6/2022
Updated:
10/6/2022
0:00
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) targeted Elon Musk over recent Twitter posts and warned that senators could take away Tesla’s tax breaks after Musk urged for de-escalation of the Russia–Ukraine war.
“I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world,” Musk wrote on Twitter this week in response to a Musk-critical poll made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Musk also posted a poll of his own on whether people in the disputed Donbass and Crimea regions should decide whether they’re part of Ukraine or Russia.

That prompted a critical comment and warning from Graham.

“With all due respect to Elon Musk—and I do respect him—I would suggest he needs to understand the facts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Graham wrote on Twitter. “Suggesting we end the Russian invasion by simply giving Russia parts of Ukraine—after all the suffering—is dumb. It is also an affront to the bravery of the Ukrainians fighting to defend their homeland.”

Later in the thread, Graham suggested that lawmakers “should revisit the electric vehicle tax credit boondoggle.”

“It is where the credit is now solely benefiting electric vehicle manufacturers who have increased prices equal to the tax credit,” he wrote on Twitter, in what some suggested is a veiled threat against Musk’s company, Tesla, the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles in the United States.

Starlink

In response, Musk said his firm has not received a consumer tax credit in several years.
An elderly woman walks past a building partially destroyed by a missile strike in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 13, 2022. (Sergy Bobok/AFP via Getty Images)
An elderly woman walks past a building partially destroyed by a missile strike in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 13, 2022. (Sergy Bobok/AFP via Getty Images)
“First of all,” he wrote, “Tesla hasn’t had that consumer tax credit for years [and] we didn’t ask for this one–GM [and] Ford did.”

Other than Graham’s criticism, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, told Musk to “[expletive] off.”

“The only outcome is that now no Ukrainian will EVER buy your [expletive] tesla crap,“ Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, said on Twitter. ”So good luck to you.”

During the early part of the Ukraine–Russia conflict, Musk announced that he would use his Starlink Internet service to aid Ukraine’s government as well as its military efforts against Russia. This week, Musk confirmed that SpaceX spent $80 million on Starlink in the Eastern European country.
“SpaceX’s out of pocket cost to enable & support Starlink in Ukraine is ~$80M so far. Our support for Russia is $0. Obviously, we are pro Ukraine,” he said.

War Developments

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has begun to unravel after a Ukrainian counteroffensive in which thousands of square miles of territory have been retaken since the start of September, including dozens of settlements in recent days.

In a blow for Moscow, thousands of Russian troops have retreated after the front line crumbled, first in the northeast, and, since the beginning of this week, also in the south.

Members of Russia's Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, attend a session to ratify legislation on annexing Ukraine's Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions into Russia, in Moscow on Oct. 4, 2022. (Russian Federation Council/Handout via Reuters)
Members of Russia's Federation Council, the upper house of parliament, attend a session to ratify legislation on annexing Ukraine's Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions into Russia, in Moscow on Oct. 4, 2022. (Russian Federation Council/Handout via Reuters)

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law to incorporate four partially occupied Ukrainian regions into Russia, including Zaporizhzhia, in Europe’s biggest attempted annexation since World War II.

Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that his army had retaken more settlements in the southern Kherson region and footage released from Kherson showed a Russian infantry fighting vehicle with a white piece of fabric wrapped around its gun barrel in apparent surrender.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
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