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.
“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.
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.