Oct 6, 2022
Elon Musk Is a Gullible Idiot
So, Elon Musk just decided to play a smartass and on October 3, 2022, tweeted a Ukraine-Russia “peace deal” proposal where he suggested that Crimea should be “part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake)”.
Why does he think that Khrushchev’s order was a “mistake”, but annexing Crimea by force in 1783 was fine? Apparently, he believes that the 2014 annexation was fine, too.
Why exactly the 1783–1954 period is more important than before 1783 or 1954–2014?
Before 1783, Crimea was controlled by the Ottoman Empire, so why don’t we give it to Turkey? Still earlier, the Crimean Khanate was a sovereign entity, so why shouldn’t Crimea be an independent nation state of the Crimean Tatars?
In fact, Greeks have been living in Crimea for much longer than the Tatars, so why don’t we give Crimea to Greece?
And I wonder why Elon doesn’t suggest giving most of Ukraine to Russia because it was part of the Russian Empire, or all of it because it was part of the Soviet Union. Finland was part of the Russian Empire, too, so why don’t we give Finland to Russia?
As I demonstrated in a previous article, if everyone used similar flawed logic, at least 15 other countries, in addition to Russia, could claim Ukrainian lands, and the world would be a mess.
Did Musk ever read anything on Crimea’s history beyond Twitter? I strongly doubt that.
Does he know that Crimea remained part of Russia after the collapse of the Russian Empire first and foremost due to the triumph of Bolshevism? Otherwise it could as well become an independent state or part of Ukraine — both scenarios looked absolutely realistic in 1917–1920. Remember that in the empire, Crimea was part of the Taurida Governorate together with parts of modern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts of Ukraine, and, taken as a whole, the majority of the governorate’s population was Ukrainian (in 1897, 42% were speaking Ukrainian, 28% Russian, and 13.5% Tatar).
But Elon didn’t stop at that. A few days later, he made another idiotic tweet with a map of Ukraine’s 2012 parliamentary election results showing that a “pro-Russia party”, as he calls it (the Party of Regions), got the majority of votes in eastern and southern regions.
Why exactly 2012? Why not 1994, or the most recent election of 2019? People who were 8 y. o. in 2012 can vote today. Many people changed their opinions after 2014, and especially after the events of 2022.
In 2012, “pro-Russia” didn’t have the same meaning as today. Back then, no one was seriously discussing the idea that Ukraine should join Russia or give away some of its territories — except a few separatists paid by Russia (yes, Russia has been sponsoring separatism in Ukraine since the 1990s).
Musk completely ignores the political and social context of Ukraine in 2012. People were voting not so much “for Russia” as for the candidates’ promises, often preferring local politicians. And it so happened that the most influential politicians in those regions were members of the Party of Regions. It was considered prestigious among the corrupted “elites”: you were a loser if you hadn’t joined the club.
Musk then commented that “some eastern portions” of Ukraine “have Russian majorities and prefer Russia”. Both statements are false. As I have shown, the support of the Party of Regions ten years ago doesn’t mean they “prefer Russia”. Furthermore, Crimea is the only region of Ukraine with the Russian majority. Both Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts had less than 40% of population who identified themselves as Russians and almost 60% of Ukrainians before Russia invaded these regions in 2014. Zaporizhzhia Oblast has less than 25% of Russians, and Kherson Oblast less than 15%. If he meant “Russian-speaking majorities”, then, by this logic, Austria should belong to Germany and the United States to the United Kingdom (or the other way round).
Musk just takes some random facts and pictures and uses them as “arguments” pushing the exact narratives Russia wants to see.
Now I understand why he wanted to buy Twitter. That’s where most of his information and opinions come from. But he’d better invest in some quality education. In addition to learning history, taking a strategic thinking course wouldn’t hurt, too. He just lost a good deal of potential future Tesla sales in Ukraine and elsewhere. Does he hope to offset it with the Russian market? Good luck.
