Elon Musk on Wednesday encouraged retired Army Lt. Col Alexander Vindman is “treasonous” and “will pay” after he was a former Trump impeachment witness who accused the tech billionaire and shut down Trump’s coalition of unknowingly being used by Russia.
“Vindman is in the pay of the Ukrainian oligarchs and has betrayed the United States,” Musk wrote on the social media platform X, responding to Vindman’s comments in an interview about Musk’s talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Musk added that Vindman, who played a central role in the impeachment of then-President Trump, “will pay the appropriate penalty.”
Hill reached out to Vindman’s team to talk.
Musk’s remarks vowing punishment come as Trump probed his vow to retaliate against what he considers enemies to have returned to the White House. The former president’s fixation on succession has caused concern among critics, some of whom worry that Trump’s second term will lack some of the safeguards that existed during his first four years in the Oval Office.
The tech billionaire followed Vindman, who served as a Ukraine expert on the National Security Council and later testified in Trump’s 2019 impeachment trial, after Vindman criticized Musk in an MSNBC interview that aired online.
“Obviously Putin has a type. He likes narcissists and egomaniacs who he knows as the head of the story who can easily deceive, to do his dirty work,” Vindman said in late October interview circulated online by X users this week. “Russia has been using various levers – be it corruption networks, in this case, its influencers like Donald Trump, like Elon Musk, to sow discord.”
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Musk has been in regular contact with Putin since the end of 2022. Putin and Musk are said to have had a variety of conversations about personal matters, business and political disagreements, sometimes involving other Russian officials, including Putin’s first deputy. chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko.
Vindman said Musk’s relationship with Putin is “more complicated” as the tech entrepreneur has access to government secrets and “Top Security Secrets.”
“It’s possible that some of that is going in,” Vindman said, adding, “He is [Putin] he has been using the richest man in the world to do what he wants. In some cases, it is encouraging him to support Donald Trump. “
Musk’s aerospace company, SpaceX, holds contracts with the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community worth billions of dollars, while his electric car company Tesla receives government subsidies.
The technology entrepreneur is said to have claimed US security clearance as part of federal agreements.
Vindman has remained a vocal critic of Trump, saying earlier this year that Trump has “every intention” of destroying American democracy if he is re-elected.
This is not the first time Musk and Vindman have clashed on social media. The two got into a social debate in 2022 when Vindman called Musk “the enemy of hatred and division” in response to the owner of the platform X calling him “both an idol and an idol.”
Vindman’s twin brother, Eugene Vindman, a retired Army general, was elected to the US House earlier this month to fill the seat being vacated by Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.).
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