Russian propagandists targeting Western audiences have taken a new approach to spreading the information they want, U.S. authorities and companies that track such operations online have recently reported. Instead of creating and spreading disinformation themselves, as they have in previous years, they have begun to feed it to influential Internet personalities in the West. Among them is Elon Musk.

Musk, who has 198 million followers on his social network X, reposted Tenet Media-related content at least 60 times — from the company’s accounts or bloggers who created the material under an agreement with it, NBC reported after analyzing X’s viewing data. As a result, the billionaire shared statements and topics favorable to Russia (without knowing that they were prepared with Russian money) with tens of millions of people.

Tenet Media came to light after the US Department of Justice filed criminal charges in early September for posting Russian propaganda content through it. The Tennessee-based company was in fact run by Russia Today (RT) employees Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, the indictment says . Their activities are cited as an example of one of the “secret projects” that RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan has bragged about. According to her, such projects are how RT, which has been kicked out of Western countries, continues to influence public opinion in those countries.

“The themes and content of the videos are often consistent with the Russian government’s interest in exacerbating domestic discord in the United States and weakening U.S. opposition to core Russian government interests, such as the ongoing war in Ukraine,” the indictment says. Kalashnikov and Afanasyeva, from Moscow, directed Tenet to contract with U.S. social media influencers to share its content on their platforms. Tenet “never disclosed to them or their millions of viewers its ties to RT or the Russian government,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

The Russian propagandists are accused of money laundering and operating without registering as foreign agents. Tenet received a total of about $10 million from them to produce content. About 2,000 of its videos were posted on TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube.

Tenet described itself as “a network of unorthodox commentators analyzing Western political and cultural issues.” In July, Musk shared a post defending Donald Trump’s comments that Americans “wouldn’t have to vote again” if he returned to the White House. Musk’s tweet with the post has been viewed 28 million times, NBC notes.

Tenet itself appears to have been keen to attract Musk’s attention. Since it began operating in November 2023, it has tweeted about Musk or tagged his account more than 50 times (often on topics related to Trump and the US presidential election).

The businessman was spreading propaganda not only from Tenet. The meme he shared in 2023 , which mocked President Volodymyr Zelensky, was actually created by the Social Projects Agency, Radio Liberty found out . In its indictment, the US Department of Justice named the agency as one of three Russian organizations that, under the leadership of Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Administration Sergei Kiriyenko, are carrying out the international disinformation operation “Double”.

(c)MOSCOW TIMES 2024