Report claiming US paid Time magazine to honor Zelensky is fake

"USAID paid Time magazine 4 million dollars to name Zelensky 'Person of the Year,'" says a February 26, 2025 post sharing the clip on X. "Is there any media that wasn't on USAID payroll? It's not just dollars, it's US taxpayers' dollars."

The post comes from an account that goes by "Johnny Midnight," which has repeatedly amplified misinformation to its more than 440,000 followers on X.

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Screenshot from X taken February 28, 2025

The video, watermarked with the New York Post's logo, alleges that the US Agency for International Development (USAID) funneled $4 million to Time in 2022 to compel the news organization to name Zelensky as its Person of the Year.

Similar posts spread across X ahead of Zelensky's February 28 meeting in Washington with Donald Trump, where an ugly clash blew up in the Oval Office, leaving in doubt efforts led by the US president to cast himself as mediator in the war between Russia and Ukraine. 

The posts also follow the Trump administration's efforts, spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk, to slash funds and staff at USAID and other government agencies. Federal government subscriptions to media organizations including Politico have drawn particular scrutiny from Musk, who has repeatedly mischaracterized the nature of the payments.

Previously, Musk shared a fabricated E! News report saying USAID paid celebrities including actor Ben Stiller millions of dollars to visit Ukraine and help boost Zelensky's popularity worldwide.

The latest viral video seeking to tie USAID to Time and Zelensky is also made up. No such video or article appears on the New York Post's website.

"It's not real," Iva Benson, a spokesperson for the New York Post, told AFP.

A spokesperson for Time, meanwhile, told AFP the allegations the video makes are false.

"TIME was not paid by USAID or any other entity to select Zelensky as Person of the Year, which is chosen solely by TIME's editors," the spokesperson said.

A search of USAspending.gov, an official open data source of federal spending information, shows no evidence of USAID funds awarded or disbursed to the magazine.

Ukraine's Center for Countering Disinformation also said in a February 27 post on X that the video is "fake" (archived here).

"This information is false, and the video circulating on social media is not present on New York Post's official platforms," the agency added in a follow-up post. "Such disinformation attempts aim to discredit President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the international stage."

AFP has debunked other misinformation about Russia's invasion of Ukraine here, and US politics here.