Al Jazeera February, 2025
Elon Musk has pledged to “fix” X’s fact-checking tool following the release of polling contradicting United States President Donald Trump’s claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is deeply unpopular in his country. Rowing in behind Trump’s attacks on Zelenskyy on Thursday, Musk claimed that his social media platform’s “community notes” feature was being “gamed” by governments and traditional media.
Musk made the claim while amplifying an anonymous right-wing X account that questioned the credibility of a widely cited Ukrainian polling outfit because of its work with the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being effectively dismantled under the billionaire’s cost-cutting drive. “If Zelensky was actually loved by the people of Ukraine, he would hold an election. He knows he would lose in a landslide, despite having seized control of ALL Ukrainian media, so he canceled the election,” Musk said on X, while sharing the unsubstantiated claim that US intelligence agencies estimate Zelenskyy’s approval to be just 4 percent.
