Elon Musk’s face has been covered up on a huge billboard in a city in Ukraine after he suggested Russia should keep control of parts of the country to achieve peace.
The Tesla CEO’s face had been displayed on the poster over a busy road in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa.
The poster – which also features images of other public figures including actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Leonardo DiCaprio – says “thanks for the support of Ukraine”.
Mr Musk was featured on the billboard as he had provided devices and terminals for his Starlink internet communications network to be used by Ukraine during the Russian invasion.
But now the tech billionaire’s face has been covered up. A video posted online by Odesa’s city council shows an employee pasting plain light-blue sheets of paper over his image.
The erasing of his image comes after Mr Musk tweeted suggestions on how he believes peace could be achieved in eastern Europe.
He suggested that Crimea, which was annexed in 2014, and the recently-annexed Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions should remain in Vladimir Putin’s control to avoid the Russian president resorting to using nuclear weapons.
Ukraine should abandon its plans to join Nato to adopt a neutral status, he also tweeted.
Mr Musk also suggested that referenda in the annexed regions – that have been condemned as “illegal” by Ukraine and the West – should be conducted again but under the supervision of the United Nations.
Mr Musk – who disputes claims that he supports Russia – was condemned by Ukrainian officials, including president Volodymyr Zelensky. Diplomat Andrij Melnyk tweeted: “F*** off is my very diplomatic reply to you.”
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on 4 October in a video call with the press that “it is very positive that somebody like Elon Musk is looking for a peaceful way out of this situation”.
“Compared to many professional diplomats, Musk is still searching for ways to achieve peace. And achieving peace without fulfilling Russia’s conditions is absolutely impossible,” he added, according to Reuters.
Ukrainian officials think that Mr Musk’s peace plan was a result of conversations with Mr Putin, and have complained of having issues with Starlink since 30 September, The Economist reported last week.
Oliver Carroll of the magazine tweeted that “Ukrainian officials told [him that] Musk turned down a request to use Starlink over Crimea. They would not tell me for what purpose”.
“Ukrainians started experiencing problems with Starlink shortly before Musk’s strange Twitter foray,” he added.
Mr Musk – who also owns SpaceX, and is in the process of buying Twitter – has denied a report by Vice News that he spoke to Mr Putin before tweeting his suggestions.
He tweeted on Tuesday: “I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space.”
Mr Musk also disputed claims that he was supporting Russia through the provision of Starlink to Ukraine.
On 3 October, he tweeted: “SpaceX’s out-of-pocket cost to enable and support Starlink in Ukraine is ~$80M so far. Our support for Russia is $0. Obviously, we are pro-Ukraine.
“Trying to retake Crimea will cause massive death, probably fail and risk nuclear war. This would be terrible for Ukraine and Earth”.
