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.

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Screenshot from X taken February 6, 2025

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.

'Lies coming from Russian media'

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)

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This picture taken and released by Ukrainian presidential press service on June 20, 2022 shows Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky welcoming US actor Ben Stiller during their meeting in Kyiv (UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE / Handout)

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."

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Screenshot from X taken February 6, 2025

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.