Tech billionaire Elon Musk called on Wednesday for Volodymyr Zelensky to “go” as Ukraine’s president, as Kyiv raised doubts over US support for the war-torn country.
Ukraine accused the United States this week of helping Russia by failing to warn it of incoming missile strikes and hobbling Kyiv’s military response through changes to Musk’s satellite system which it uses for communications.
“And so the slaughter continues,” Musk wrote on X. “Time for Zelensky to go.” Zelensky had called on Musk to restore Starlink, which was designed by the mogul’s SpaceX company and which Kyiv says has been slowed down.
Musk said any disruption was the responsibility of the US government.
He drew a distinction between Starshield, which Ukraine relies on for battlefield communications and which he said was controlled by the US government, and the Starlink civilian satellite system, which Ukraine also deploys but is not allowed to use for offensive operations.
The row comes after Zelensky replied in the affirmative when asked if he felt “betrayed” after US President Donald Trump announced a diesel-supply deal with heavily sanctioned Moscow.
Trump said on Saturday that he thought “it’s time for Ukraine to get a new president” as he responded to Zelensky’s criticism of the US diesel deal with Russia.
Trump said, before suggesting Ukraine should “get a new leader who can make a deal”.
A senior official in Kyiv also said that the US had in recent days threatened to stop providing intelligence about Russian missile launches that Ukraine uses to thwart attacks —which Trump has denied.
Trump, facing key midterm elections next month in which soaring fuel prices are a major issue, has blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries for the squeeze on supplies and increase in prices at the pump.