Billionaire and electric vehicle major Tesla chief executive Elon Musk on Monday came up with a 'peace plan' proposal to end Russia's war in Ukraine, which received a lot of backlash from Ukrainians, including President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Musk, who's among the most-prolific Twitter users whose tweets range from science & technology to politics and the latest memes, came out with a poll, asking his over 108 million followers on Twitter to vote in it.
Terming it the 'Ukraine-Russia Peace' plan, Musk opined four key points -- Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is the will of the people; Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake); water supply to Crimea assured; and Ukraine remains neutral.
He also said the points he talked about will highly likely be the outcome in the end, and that it's just a question of how many people would die before it happens. "Also worth noting that a possible, albeit unlikely, outcome from this conflict is nuclear war," he added.
However, not many seemed to have agreed with Musk, which showed in the poll results -- of the total of 2.2 million people who voted, 60.8% people said 'no' to his proposal, while 39.2% said 'yes'.
One of the biggest reactions to Musk's proposal came from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who rebutted with a similar poll on Twitter, asking people "Which @elonmusk do you like more?". The options were 'the one who supports Ukraine' and 'the one who supports Russia'.
As of now, 1.7 million people have voted on the post, with 81.1% saying they like Elon Musk who "supports Ukraine". Reacting to Zelenskiy, Musk said he still very much supports Ukraine but is convinced that a massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world.
Musk's latest 'peace plan' also didn't go down well with former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who called it "moral idiocy" and repetition of "Kremlin propaganda". "This is moral idiocy, repetition of Kremlin propaganda, a betrayal of Ukrainian courage & sacrifice, and puts a few minutes browsing Crimea on Wikipedia over the current horrific reality of Putin's bloody war," he says.
He said Musk is in no position to reward years of Putin's war crimes with Ukrainian blood and land. He even suggested Musk to delete his tweets. "To declare done what evil crimes must be undone? It is not too late to delete this and say you were high."
Not ready to bow down, the billionaire replied: "We gave Starlinks to Ukraine & lost $80M+ in doing so, while putting SpaceX & myself at serious risk of Russian cyberattack. What have you done besides tweet?"
On this Kasparov said everyone, including him, praised him for that but should good deeds purchase immunity for later bad ones, or should every act & statement be judged on its merits? "Should Ukrainians who thanked you for Starlink be silent when you spread Kremlin talking points against them?" he asked.
When his 'peace plan' on Twitter backfired, Elon Musk came out with another proposal. "Let’s try this then: the will of the people who live in the Donbas & Crimea should decide whether they’re part of Russia or Ukraine," he said. Of the total of 1.8 million people who voted in his poll, 57.9% said 'yes', while 42.1% said 'no'.
He said people should seek peace rather than war as a victory for Ukraine is unlikely in total war. "Russia is doing partial mobilisation. They go to full war mobilisation if Crimea is at risk. Death on both sides will be devastating. Russia has >3 times the population of Ukraine, so victory for Ukraine is unlikely in total war. If you care about the people of Ukraine, seek peace," he said.
The richest man in the world is currently engaged in a legal battle with social media platform Twitter Inc for backtracking on his earlier plan to buy the company for $44 billion. The trial in the case is expected to start this month.
