Sen. Graham Warns Elon Musk After He Calls for De-escalation of Ukraine War

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) targeted Elon Musk over recent Twitter posts and warned that senators could take away Tesla’s tax breaks after Musk urged for de-escalation of the Russia–Ukraine war.

“I still very much support Ukraine, but am convinced that massive escalation of the war will cause great harm to Ukraine and possibly the world,” Musk wrote on Twitter this week in response to a Musk-critical poll made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Musk also posted a poll of his own on whether people in the disputed Donbass and Crimea regions should decide whether they’re part of Ukraine or Russia.

That prompted a critical comment and warning from Graham.

“With all due respect to Elon Musk—and I do respect him—I would suggest he needs to understand the facts of the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” Graham wrote on Twitter. “Suggesting we end the Russian invasion by simply giving Russia parts of Ukraine—after all the suffering—is dumb. It is also an affront to the bravery of the Ukrainians fighting to defend their homeland.”

Later in the thread, Graham suggested that lawmakers “should revisit the electric vehicle tax credit boondoggle.”

“It is where the credit is now solely benefiting electric vehicle manufacturers who have increased prices equal to the tax credit,” he wrote on Twitter, in what some suggested is a veiled threat against Musk’s company, Tesla, the largest manufacturer of electric vehicles in the United States.

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In response, Musk said his firm has not received a consumer tax credit in several years.

An elderly woman walks past a building partially destroyed by a missile strike in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 13, 2022. (Sergy Bobok/AFP via Getty Images)

“First of all,” he wrote, “Tesla hasn’t had that consumer tax credit for years [and] we didn’t ask for this one–GM [and]

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