Elon Musk said on Friday that Ukraine’s elites “have grown very rich off the hundreds of billions flowing to Ukraine” while the children of ordinary Ukrainians “are conscripted to die in trenches.” The posts were the latest in a run of comments this month in which Musk has criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and called for him to leave office. Musk wrote them minutes after Zelenskyy said speed limits on Ukraine’s use of the Starlink and Starshield satellite services were still in place.
“What’s actually going on in Ukraine is that there is a massive incentive difference between the elites and the people,” Musk wrote in a post on X on Friday afternoon, Oct. 23. “The former have grown very rich off the hundreds of billions flowing to Ukraine, while the latter’s children are conscripted to die in trenches.”
Minutes later, Musk added in a follow-up reply to his own post: “And some of that US taxpayer money comes back through multiple laundry machines to fund political campaigns in America, which is why you see some politicians caring more about Ukraine than America!” Musk did not name any Ukrainian officials, U.S. politicians or campaigns, and he offered no evidence for either claim.
Musk’s first post was a standalone message, not a reply or a quote, and it did not say what prompted it. Minutes earlier, Zelenskyy’s account posted an excerpt from his virtual address to the Hudson Institute: “The speed limits on Starlink and Starshield are still there. The speed has not been restored.” Musk did not refer to Zelenskyy’s post.
“Things have become harder – partly because of the Starlink and Starshield policies and speed limits,” Zelenskyy said in the same excerpt, adding: “But our frontline is still holding.” Minutes after Musk’s first post, Zelenskyy’s account posted the final excerpt, saying he wanted relations between Ukraine and the United States to be “strong, truly friendly, and without misunderstandings.” That post did not mention Musk.
Musk’s criticism of Zelenskyy has picked up this month after months in which he posted relatively little about the war. On Oct. 10, he wrote in reply to a White House video of Trump, who said of Zelenskyy’s strikes on Russian refineries, “He better damn well stop.” Musk wrote: “Zelensky has gone too far.”
Early on Oct. 11, Musk replied to another user: “I agree, time for Ukraine to get a new leader.” Late on Oct. 14, he wrote in another post: “And so the slaughter continues … Time for Zelensky to go.”
The comments follow a longer record. In October 2022, Musk proposed a peace plan that included Crimea being “formally part of Russia,” and Zelenskyy responded with a poll asking: “Which @elonmusk do you like more?”
On Feb. 28, 2025, the day of Zelenskyy’s Oval Office meeting with Trump, Musk wrote on X: “Time to find out what really happened to the hundreds of billions of dollars sent to Ukraine …” On March 9, 2025, he wrote that “the elite in Ukraine and some of the elite in the West” have “fancy dinners in mansions every night, while sending the sons of others to die in trenches of mud and blood in the forever war.”
The dispute over the satellite services began in mid-October. On Oct. 14, Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov wrote on X: “Starlink connectivity at speeds of up to 160 km/h is being restored. Removing Starshield’s speed limit entirely is now critical for Ukraine’s defense.”
Musk replied to Fedorov later that day. “Starshield systems are owned and controlled by the US government. Any limits on speed or usage are decided by the US military and ultimately POTUS,” he wrote, adding that Starlink “cannot be used for offensive military action, as doing so would be inappropriate for a commercial company.”
Zelenskyy said on Oct. 16 that “Starlink wasn’t turned off – its speed was reduced. And when the speed was reduced, we were unable to intercept a certain number of jet-powered ‘shaheds.'” On Oct. 20, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told reporters, according to a Department of War transcript: “There are terms of service that ultimately need to be complied to and that’s where Starlink has the option to make those decisions.”
About two hours before Musk’s posts, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House, in remarks aired by C-SPAN, that “Elon will never do anything wrong” and that “I’ve heard it was fixed, but if it’s not, I’ll speak to him.” Reuters, in a report on the remarks, said the caps had been in place since Oct. 13.
Earlier on Friday, Ukraine’s charge d’affaires in Washington, Denys Sienik, wrote on X that “Starshield/Starlink speed restrictions remain in place.” He added: “Unfortunately, as of today, nothing has changed. We continue to wait.”
On the aid figures Musk cited, the U.S. government’s Ukraine oversight website says Congress appropriated $174.2 billion through five Ukraine supplemental spending laws from fiscal 2022 through fiscal 2024. That total includes money for U.S. military operations in Europe and $10.6 billion allocated for “other, primarily humanitarian, purposes,” and not all of it went to Ukraine’s government.
The site says Congress “has provided limited new Ukraine related funding since April 2024,” with $5.13 billion in fiscal 2025 and $7.62 billion in fiscal 2026. It says $121.2 billion of the overall $196.4 billion had been disbursed through June 30, 2026.
Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski quoted Musk’s follow-up later Friday afternoon. “No, @elonmusk, the U.S. stopped funding Ukraine last year. In fact, U.S. companies make money on American weapons for which we Europeans pay,” Sikorski wrote. “The more you meddle in our politics and the more you play politics with your products, the more you damage your brand.”
The oversight site says NATO allies and partners had contributed $6.3 billion as of June 2026 to a program that buys U.S. weapons for Ukraine.
Sikorski and Musk clashed in March 2025, after Musk wrote that Starlink “is the backbone of the Ukrainian army” and Sikorski replied that Poland paid about $50 million a year for Ukraine’s terminals. Musk answered at the time: “Be quiet, small man.” He had not replied to Sikorski’s latest post as of Saturday morning.
U.S. Representative Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, quoted Musk’s first post early Saturday: “He just described every war of the modern era.” Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who left Congress in January, wrote on Friday evening: “Obvious from the beginning, which is why I never voted to fund the Ukraine war.”
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau has pursued several high-level cases. In November 2025 it announced Operation Midas, an investigation into an alleged scheme in which contractors of the state nuclear power company Energoatom were made to pay kickbacks of 10% to 15% of contract value.
The bureau’s first-half 2026 report says a former head of the Office of the President was served with a notice of suspicion for laundering more than 460 million hryvnias, part of it from the Energoatom scheme. The report does not say any of the money came from foreign aid, and the bureau notes that suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
Zelenskyy’s office, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry and the White House had not publicly responded to Musk’s posts as of Saturday morning, and Musk had not responded to Massie or Greene.
That Ukraine’s elites “have grown very rich” off aid and that U.S. money “comes back through multiple laundry machines” to American campaigns are Musk’s characterizations, and he named no people or campaigns and cited no investigation or document. The record shows Musk has criticized Zelenskyy since 2022 and more often this month; the $174.2 billion appropriated did not all go to Ukraine, and Ukraine’s anti-corruption bureau has not tied its biggest recent case to foreign aid. Poland’s foreign minister disputed Musk publicly, while Ukraine’s government and U.S. officials had not responded as of Saturday morning.