A few weeks ago Elon Musk took me - and really, all of us - by surprise when he tried to broker an end to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on Twitter.
Because sensitive geopolitical matters are best solved by crowdsourcing on social media platforms, Musk tweeted:
Now, there's a lot to unpack here, but one thing that really stood out to me was the parenthetical "(until Khrushchev's mistake)."
That is straight-up, unadulterated Russian propaganda. It's literally something that comes from the Kremlin.
That's obvious because no one outside of Russia would ever impartially describe a sovereign country gaining independence as a "mistake." This perspective can only come from the colonizing power lamenting the loss of its colony.
The clear implication is that Russia possessed Ukraine but somehow fumbled it away as one would drop their car keys.
Truly, in a message that is laden with Russian propaganda, that parenthetical really gives the game away.
So where did Elon get this "proposal" from?
Apparently, Vladimir Putin, himself. At least, that's according to Ian Bremmer, the founder and president of the Eurasia Group, who responded to Musk thusly:
Furthermore, Putin, according to Bremmer, told Musk that Ukraine would have to concede Crimea as well as the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions (which Russian forces are currently abandoning), and declare a permanent neutrality.
In other words, a near complete surrender.
And on top of that, if Ukraine even attempts to retake Crimea, he'll go nuclear.
OK. So we've gotten this far.
We know that Putin is adept at manipulating rich, egotistical influencers. And we can see that happening here.
But there's one more piece that needs fitting in.
Namely, it's Elon Musk's SpaceX Starlink terminals that have been providing battlefield connectivity to Ukrainian forces.
So when Vladimir Putin called Elon up, it wasn't just to float a trial balloon for a peace plan to end the war...
It was to intimidate him.