Musk amplifies fake report claiming USAID paid celebrities to support Zelensky
"Did you know that USAID spent your tax dollars to fund celebrity trips to Ukraine, all to boost Zelensky's popularity among Americans?" says a February 5, 2025 post on X from "I Meme Therefore I Am," a popular conservative account that has previously spread misinformation, including about the Ukrainian leader.
Billionaire Musk, tasked by US President Donald Trump with overhauling the federal government, reposted the clip to his more than 216 million followers on the platform he owns.
Trump Jr, the president's eldest son, and Sidney Powell, a former Trump attorney who played an outsized role in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, also amplified the video.
The 36-second clip is mocked up in the form of a video report from E! News, with the entertainment news site's logo featured throughout. It claims the US Agency for International Development (USAID) "sponsored American celebrity visits to Ukraine after Russia's full-scale invasion began" in order "to increase Zelensky's popularity among foreign audiences, particularly in the United States."
Specifically, it alleges that the agency paid $20 million to Angelina Jolie, $5 million to Sean Penn, $8 million to Orlando Bloom, $4 million dollars to Ben Stiller and $1.5 million to Jean-Claude Van Damme -- whose name it misspells.
The posts sharing it racked up millions of engagements across X and other platforms. They spread as Musk announced the new administration's decision to shutter USAID, a mammoth agency that has for decades funded health and emergency programs as well as democracy promotion initiatives in around 120 countries, including the world's poorest regions.
The agency's website had previously been taken offline, and its staff placed on leave, prompting concerns about the legality of Musk's actions and the impact on people around the globe who benefit from programs linked to USAID. Russia has applauded the assault on the agency, which it has long criticized.
But the video and the story within "is not authentic and did not originate from E! News," a spokesperson for the outlet told AFP in a February 5 email.
While each of the actors named in the clip has been to Ukraine, there is no evidence of USAID funneling them money.
Jolie, a major donor to humanitarian efforts worldwide, visited Ukraine in 2022 (archived here and here). She was serving as a special envoy for the UN refugee agency at the time but made the trip in a personal capacity, reports citing a UN spokesperson said (archived here and here).
Penn traveled to the country in 2022 as he filmed a documentary about the war and Zelensky (archived here and here). Stiller met the Ukrainian leader the same year while visiting as a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency, and Bloom met him in 2023 as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador (archived here, here, here, here and here). Van Damme went to the country in 2022 "to deliver a message of hope and peace," according to his YouTube channel (archived here and here)
Stiller responded to the viral video February 5 on X, saying that he paid for his visit to Ukraine in 2022, with no money kicked in from USAID and "certainly no personal payments" (archived here and here).
"These are lies coming from Russian media," Stiller said in the first of two posts. "I completely self-funded my humanitarian trip to Ukraine. There was no funding from USAID and certainly no payment of any kind. 100 percent false."
The UN refugee agency said in a February 6 statement that Stiller "is not compensated for his work with UNHCR and self-funds his travel" (archived here).
The UN Guidelines for the Designation of Messengers of Peace and Goodwill Ambassadors say: "Messengers of Peace and Goodwill Ambassadors shall not be paid a salary, although a symbolic payment of $1 per year or equivalent may be granted to them" (archived here and here).
AFP found no evidence of USAID payments to any of the celebrities named on usaspending.gov, an official open data source compiling federal spending information.
Darren Linvill, co-director of Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub, said on X February 5 that the supposed E! News report "has every indication of being a Russian fabricated video planted and spread using familiar methods" (archived here and here).
Linvill said some of the earliest accounts to share the clip on X have frequently circulated disinformation originating with a Russian propaganda group researchers have dubbed Storm-1516.
The video also spread in Russian Telegram channels and on Pravda, a Russia state media site, AFP found.
Other fake videos deceptively watermarked with the logo of the British broadcaster BBC News have previously spread amid the war.
Andriy Yermak, head of the office of the president of Ukraine, posted on X that the latest clip about USAID paying celebrities is "complete nonsense" (archived here).
AFP reached out to representatives for Jolie, Penn, Bloom and Van Damme, but no responses were forthcoming.
AFP has debunked other misinformation about Russia's invasion of Ukraine here.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Politico
30 minutes ago
- Politico
Minnesota's slain Democratic leader lived the political divisions in the US every day
MINNEAPOLIS — Americans talk constantly about how their country is split down the middle politically. Melissa Hortman lived that every day as a Minnesota House member. Her unique perspective on politics came from her job as the House's top Democrat and its unusual challenge. She had to defend liberal priorities in a chamber divided 67-67 between Democrats and Republicans while working to see that the even split didn't keep the Legislature from funding state government. She and her husband were shot to death early Saturday in their Minneapolis-area home in what authorities are calling an act of political violence. Another prominent area lawmaker, state Sen. John Hoffman, was shot and wounded, along with his wife, in their home about 15 minutes away. Hortman had served as House speaker for six years when the 2024 elections cost Democrats their slim majority. She led fellow Democrats in boycotting House sessions for almost a month, starting in mid-January, to prevent the GOP from using a temporary vacancy in a Democratic seat to cement control over the chamber, forcing Republicans into sharing power. She wanted to protect state health coverage for adult immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, a liberal policy enacted on her watch as speaker in 2023. But when the only budget deal that she could broker included a GOP bill to cut that coverage, she provided the single Democratic vote in the House, securing its passage so that state government would remain funded for the next two years. 'She battled fiercely, but never let it impact the personal bond that we developed serving as caucus leaders,' GOP House Speaker Lisa Demuth said in a statement. 'I am beyond heartbroken by her loss.' The shootings shocked a state that prides its politics as being 'Minnesota nice,' even despite higher partisan tensions in recent years. To outsiders, Minnesota looks blue. The state hasn't voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 1972, and all of its statewide elected officials are Democrats. Yet the Legislature is now almost evenly split, with Democrats clinging to a 34-33 majority in the Senate. Republicans are still frustrated with how Democrats used their slim majorities in both chambers in 2023 and 2024 to roll over them and enact a sweeping liberal agenda. In 2023, Democrats had an ambitious wish list and passed practically everything on it, with Hortman a key player. The measures included expanded abortion and trans rights, paid family and medical leave, universal free school lunches, child care credits and other aid for families. But on Saturday, the mourning for Hortman, Hoffman and their families was bipartisan. Hoffman, 60, is chair of the Senate Human Services Committee, which oversees one of the biggest parts of the state budget. He lives in Champlin, in the northwest part of the Minneapolis area, and owns a consulting firm, and he and his wife, Yvette, had one daughter. He previously was marketing and public relations director for a nonprofit provider of employment services for people with mental illnesses and intellectual and developmental disabilities and supervised a juvenile detention center in Iowa. He was first elected to the Senate in 2012. In 2023, Hoffman supported budget legislation that extended the state MinnesotaCare health program to immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, starting this year. On Monday, he voted against a bill to end that coverage for adults on Jan. 1 — a GOP goal that was a key part of the budget agreement that Hortman helped broker. Last year, Hoffman sponsored a bill designed to prevent courts from blocking people with disabilities from adopting children, and in 2023, he proposed an amendment to the state constitution to create a fund to pay for long-term care by taxing the Social Security benefits of the state's wealthiest residents. Hortman had served as the House Democrats' leader since 2017, and six years as speaker, starting in 2019. Under a power-sharing deal, her title became speaker emerita. She and her husband, Mark, lived in Brooklyn Park, another suburb in the northwest part of the Minneapolis area. They had two adult children. A lawyer, she twice lost races for the House before first winning her seat in 2004. U.S. Sen. and Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar recalled campaigning door to door that year with Hortman, when Klobuchar was the elected chief prosecutor for Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis. Klobuchar praised Hortman's support for free school lunches, women's rights and clean energy, calling her 'a true public servant to the core.' Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, who attended the University of Minnesota's law school with Hortman, said: 'She was smart, savvy, strategic, kind, funny, brave, and determined.' Hortman became part of the Democrats' legislative leadership team in 2007, then House minority leader in 2017, before Democrats recaptured a House majority in 2019. Her proposals included state emission standards like ones imposed in California and a ban on the sale of products containing mercury. She also proposed studying the feasibility of ending state investments in fossil fuel companies. Demuth, the current Republican House speaker, said Hortman was a nationally recognized expert on energy policy. 'She wasn't only a leader — she was a damn good legislator, and Minnesotans everywhere will suffer because of this loss,' said Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, a former Minnesota state party chair and a friend of Hortman's.
San Francisco Chronicle
40 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Forget the American flag. These are the flags to fly on July 4 to celebrate liberty
If you want to celebrate your independence this July 4, put your American flags away. Instead, fly a California flag. Or, even better, run up the banner of your county or municipality. The local level is where you stand the best chance of holding onto your liberty. Because the occupier of the White House never stops declaring that he, not we Californians, are the proper rulers of California. Violating law and the Constitution, President Donald Trump maintains that he can put the military in charge of Los Angeles, strip our schools of billions, tell our universities what to teach, impose tariffs on our businesses at his whim, overrule voter-approved environmental laws, deport our immigrant neighbors — even legal residents and U.S. citizens, take health care from our poor, claw back funds from our localities, steal billions from high-speed rail and even decide who gets to compete in high school track meets. It is altogether fitting and proper that Californians pull down the flag on the Fourth. Because Trump almost perfectly resembles the lawlessness of King George III that inspired the Declaration of Independence 249 years ago. The 'long train of abuses and usurpations' listed in the declaration are familiar today — 'he has refused his Assent to Laws … he has obstructed the Administration of Justice … For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world … He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.' Pulling down the U.S. flag would be even more powerful if California's governments did it, too. It also would be an act of defiance — not just of this new American dictatorship, but also of outdated 1953 state flags laws that unjustly paint California as subservient to the United States. Those flag laws say that both American and Californian flags must be displayed 'in all rooms where any court or any state, county, or municipal commission holds any sessions,' 'upon or in front of … each public building belonging to the State, a county, or a municipality' and 'at the entrance or upon the grounds or upon the administration building' of schools. And when both flags are used together, they must be of the same size — but with the American flag 'placed in the position of first honor,' according to Section 436. 'If only one flagpole is used, the National Flag shall be above the State Flag.' C.C. Marin, director of the Independent California Institute, encourages challenges to the custom of American flag supremacy and urges us just to fly the California flag instead. 'California's state flag is a powerful symbol of resistance and unity in the face of a cruel, lawless presidential administration,' Marin wrote recently. 'Flags remind us who's in charge. California is not and has never been a subsidiary of the federal government. … Voluntarily flying our own flag below the American flag is literally a symbol of inferiority and compliance.' Marin suggests that charter cities — which have their own constitutions, take the lead in pulling down American flags because they are exempt from flag laws. Special districts — governments that carry out a special duty, like running a hospital or a utility — also don't have to fly the American flag, Marin notes. For other jurisdictions, where the flag laws apply, Marin has suggestions. First, Californians could insist that state and local governments follow the flag law provisions that the American flag and the California flag must be the same size when they are flown together. That rule is violated in Sacramento, including at the Capitol, where the American flag is bigger than the California flag. Perhaps lawsuits could force compliance. Second, Californians and their governments should consider flying the American flag upside down — which is legal. Doing so is 'a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property,' according to the U.S. Flag Code. The nascent American dictator's military invasion of California obviously qualifies as extreme danger. On a personal note, I love flying flags outside my home, but I haven't decided what I'm doing for the Fourth. Right now, the Canadian flag is up (I value the True North as an ally, even though Trumpists don't), but I may switch to the California flag or the Los Angeles County flag. Or I might raise the Earth Flag, a half-century-old flag showing a photo of Earth taken during the Apollo missions. The flag expresses our planetary commitment to all living things, though I'd fly it in support of the democratically sovereign Humboldt County city of Arcata. Voters there approved Measure M to raise the Earth Flag above the U.S. flag in 2022. That measure is being challenged in court. Meanwhile, the Trump regime just sent out an order barring U.S. government institutions from flying 'activist' flags. Which makes flying the Earth Flag, or other banners of your choice, the perfect holiday expression of independence.
San Francisco Chronicle
40 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Will Democrats finally stop defending protesters who turn to thuggery?
This weekend marks the next step in a likely long hot summer of protest and the latest opportunity for Gavin Newsom and other Democrats to stop reflexively defending the 'peaceful protests' that have been occurring in Los Angeles and elsewhere without acknowledging that the rest of the country doesn't see them as entirely peaceful. If Democrats don't acknowledge the full picture of what's going on, the crew with trust issues with voters and a 38% approval rating, 5 points lower than the GOP — stands little chance of checking Donald Trump's fascistic rise. 'This is anarchy and true chaos,' Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., posted on X above an image of a burning car in Los Angeles. 'My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement.' 'One of the great lessons of 2024,' Biden-Harris campaign strategist David Plouffe told the authors of the new bestselling book, 'Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again' is that 'never again can we as a party suggest to people that what they're seeing is not true.' (Even though Trump does that daily.) But Democrats risk doing it again if protest-adjacent vandalism continues unchecked over the critical next few months. And that will hurt Democrats' chances of rallying Americans outside their shrinking tent against Trump. Historian Heather Cox Richardson, author of the newsletter 'Letters from an American,' said this summer's protests will be a 'fight for public opinion' with the goal being to persuade 3.5% of Americans to oppose Trump's agenda. There is little margin for error — or for protest interlopers to hijack the message that Trump is dangerously grabbing the power of a king and using it to punish immigrants and further enrich the wealthy. 'People sometimes mistake the idea that protests are designed to fight back against the system, and the people in the system,' Richardson said in an online video. 'In fact, the minute that you start to demonstrate violence, you lose all those people you need on your team, because they were kind of apathetic to begin with, and they just don't want to have any part of it.' So Democrats can't tell America that, as Plouffe put it, 'what they're seeing is not true.' But still some persist. 'The reality is we see peaceful protests launching in Los Angeles,' Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., told NBC's 'Meet the Press' last week. 'And again, any violence against police officers should not be accepted.' 'Angelenos are standing up for their city in a peaceful way,' Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Los Angeles, told CNN last week, adding as an aside, 'There are some anarchists.' Said Cox Richardson: 'Nonviolence is important, because that brings (supporters) on board. The minute they see violence, they don't want any part of it. So the protests on our side to take back American democracy must be nonviolent.' During his nationally televised address last week calling out Trump's overreach in taking over the national guard, Newsom tried to broaden the tent saying, 'This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next.' For Americans in other states to resist Trump, Newsom and other Democrats will have to simultaneously support the peaceful grassroots protests and sideline the thugs. It's the only way the movement spreads beyond the blue state choir. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is trying by framing the 8 p.m. curfew she implemented as remaining in effect 'to curb bad actors who do not support the immigrant community.' Demonstrations don't happen as often — or ever — in most of the U.S. Meanwhile, the Bay Area hosts demonstrations seven days a week. So for starters, the mere sight of thousands of people filling the streets is foreign, intimidating and a little bit scary to people who spent Saturday at Little League or cutting the grass in Kansas. As he assumes a larger profile on the national stage during this latest public tussle with Trump, Newsom needs to better explain the nuance of protests. Democrats to the left of Fetterman often call a protest 'peaceful' even if there are images of protesters lighting cars on fire and breaking windows and vandalizing businesses and property. Those acts are dismissed off-handedly as 'property damage' and not violence. (Tell that to the family businesses that have to replace their windows the next morning.) Yes, the vandals doing that damage constitute only a small fraction of the demonstrators, but they receive a disproportionate amount of air time — and that only helps Trump. Their actions need to be acknowledged more forcibly, called out as unlawful and very publicly prosecuted. Newsom understands this. 'If you incite violence — I want to be clear about this — if you incite violence or destroy our communities, you are going to be held to account. That kind of criminal behavior will not be tolerated. Full stop,' Newsom said in his nationally broadcast speech Tuesday, noting that 220 people had been arrested in Los Angeles and local law enforcement was reviewing video of the chaos 'to build additional cases and people will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.' His challenge is that parsing those differences between protesters is difficult and rarely done. I first wrote about those differences while covering dozens of Iraq War protests two decades ago. Many mass demonstrations in the Bay and L.A. often follow a similar arc: Thousands of people will peacefully and boisterously march in the streets for hours without incident. Chanting, waving signs, talking smack about the government (all protected under the First Amendment, as is waving a Mexican flag.) Then, in their wake, usually as the first wave of peaceful demonstrators is headed home, a 'breakaway' contingent of demonstrators unaffiliated with the main organizers will start breaking windows, tagging buildings with graffiti and engaging in other random acts of vandalism that have nothing to do with the theme of the demonstration other than being a different expression of rage. Often, they self-identify as anti-capitalist 'anarchists.' During the 2003 anti-war demonstrations, anarchists told me they were frustrated with conventional peace events and called for a breakaway march to 'bring some militancy' to the anti-war movement. 'What does (the main march) threaten? It can just be ignored like any other position people are taking,' said one anarchist, who asked not to be identified. Yet organizers of the main demonstrations rarely called out the thugs piggybacking on their protest. Some told me they were threatened when they did. So instead, when pressed, many often exonerated the splinter groups and their actions to me by saying, 'Let a thousand flowers bloom.' In other words, all kinds of protests are valid. There has long been a reluctance among activists to criticize fellow travelers, even those whose vandalism devalues the message the main demonstration is trying to send. Unless protest organizers do something to self-police these demonstration hijackers, their powerful, existential message — Trump is becoming a fascistic autocrat before our eyes — will be diluted. Or worse, ignored. It's time to pull the dandelions sprouting among the flowers. And while I'm hesitant to jump on the blame-the-media bandwagon, we own some responsibility here, too. Television coverage of these mass demonstrations, which provides most of the protest images consumed on all platforms, is rarely nuanced enough to draw the distinctions between the main marchers and the unaffiliated vandals gravy-training on their earnest intentions. TV reports invariably focus on the broken windows in the wake of an otherwise peaceful march rather than the message that the marchers were making about Trump's budding fascism. If it bleeds — or is broken — it leads on TV news. If Newsom and protest organizers don't mute the vandals this summer, then Trump wins the fight for public opinion. Those 'anarchists' will become Trump's best weapon as their behavior is contributing to the false narrative that American cities are out of control. Yeah, the anarchists are angry. A lot of us are angry. But burning and breaking stuff is damaging the common cause we share. We are right — and constitutionally endowed — to take to the street on behalf of law-abiding immigrants. But you're not helping if you're busting up stuff, or not calling out those who do. See something? Say something. And that starts with Newsom, who has to remember that he's now talking to the rest of America. Not just California.
