this post was submitted on 18 May 2025
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A former FBI agent has alleged that Russia’s GRU intelligence agency targeted tech billionaire Elon Musk for exploitation and offered him direct contact with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Former FBI Counterintelligence Special Agent Jonathan Buma stated that Russian intelligence had special operations to influence Silicon Valley tech CEOs such as Musk and venture capitalist Peter Thiel that included gathering damning information that could later be used as blackmail.

“Musk’s susceptibility to promiscuous women and drug use, particularly ketamine… were seen by Russian intelligence as an opportunity for an agent to exploit,” said the former FBI Special Agent in a recently released documentary by the German Television Broadcaster ZDF.

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[–] raltoid@lemmy.world 37 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

This is a great demonstration of how disinformation agents work.

There are multiple sources, a full documentary, interviews with the creators, the agent is named. etc. And most of the top comments on the posts about this, are from troll farms out of Russia talking about how the source is bad, how it's just gossip, no one is named, etc. and generally just lying to discredit the story.

[–] vga@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

So by disinformation do you now refer to the news article itself or to comments about the news article? What mechanism did you use to verify any of this?

[–] REDACTED@infosec.pub 2 points 1 hour ago

What mechanism did you use to verify any of this?

Wait a minute..

[–] gradual@lemmings.world 9 points 8 hours ago

It's difficult to convince this generation not to believe everything they read on the internet because getting swept up in hysteria is part of the entertainment.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 23 points 12 hours ago

Here's the ZDF documentary, German only, German subtitles available.

Here's an interview with the makers, also German but as it's on youtube you might have some success with auto-translated subtitles.

[–] AntelopeRoom@lemm.ee 33 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (2 children)

Our government has been co-opted by foreign agents

[–] MunkysUnkEnz0@lemmy.world 18 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Makes total sense. It's really the only answer to what's happening.

They are literally destroying the country piece by piece.

[–] iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 13 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I think that another - and I think more important - answer is that the capital class finally regained control. They chaffed for decades under the limits imposed after they destroyed the worldwide economy in the early 20th century, and spent the second half of the 20th century and the start of the 21st systematically removing constraints.

[–] stringere@sh.itjust.works 4 points 5 hours ago

Someone paid attention in history class and has been drawing parallels.

I'm telling!

[–] Tja@programming.dev 6 points 13 hours ago

The president should look into it!

[–] Hikuro93@lemmy.world 66 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago) (1 children)

What better way to manipulate someone with self-worth issues who must flaunt his "power" and "wealth" to "prove others wrong" than stroking his fragile ego?

Small pp energy. Or rather, botched pp energy in this specific case.

Same for the Trump and co. axis of evil - a bunch of adult children with ego issues wanting revenge on the world that belittled or thwarted their constant schemes, all banded together.

[–] Zerlyna@lemmy.world 24 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I wonder how many dolls Ivanka had.

[–] not_that_guy05@lemmy.world 23 points 17 hours ago

My man, she was the doll... For him.

[–] altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

My diagonal reading led me to believe they bribed him with a sex with Vlad. This confusion lasted only a second. But let me tell ya, that was one unnaturally long and scary second.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 1 points 2 hours ago

Lol yeah, there's no way!

...They already know Agent Krasnov throws a huge fit if he's told he has to share.

[–] Kurious84@eviltoast.org 32 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

Another bleeding obvious. It's too late now. He already let them in and I'm sure big balls and those other punks are on the Russian payroll or their influence.

[–] Raiderkev@lemmy.world 30 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

The coup is complete. They stole the election, managed to not get stopped, and backdoored all US government systems to the FSB. This whistleblower says that entities based in Russia tried to access new accounts with God mode created by doge mere minutes after being created with the correct credentials. Democracy is toast if we continue to let this illegitimate administration continue. If we manage to oust them, every system needs to be rebuilt top to bottom. Also, the FBI "can't find" their hacking toolkits. I guarantee those were handed over as well.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/nlrb-whistleblower-claims-musks-doge-potentially-caused-significant-security-breach

Electiontruthalliance.org has the data. The tabulators were hacked, and switched votes from Harris to Trump right after the audited portion (I believe 300 votes per machine). There are tons of ballots for Trump and down ballot dem in every other category. Christopher Titus had Nathan from ETA on recently on a 2 part episode where he breaks it down pretty well. Most of the data is in part 2.

https://youtu.be/UgIay64Obcs

https://youtu.be/t-yr-Mgkhm0

[–] rxbudian@lemmy.ca 12 points 15 hours ago

There's probably a Russian agent that got pregnant from him

[–] MunkysUnkEnz0@lemmy.world 6 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Funny, I just searched Google and no major news organizations are covering this.

Why is that? Are they in on it? Complacent? Waiting till tomorrow?

[–] tauren@lemm.ee 11 points 13 hours ago

Not following German media.

said the former FBI Special Agent in a recently released documentary by the German Television Broadcaster ZDF

[–] magnetosphere@fedia.io 17 points 17 hours ago

To be fair, I could probably be bribed with sex and drugs, too. Not ketamine, though. I’m more of a Netflix and chill kind of guy.

[–] optimistic@lemm.ee 0 points 8 hours ago

And still we fall

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 0 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

No evidence offered, and the article spends half the time talking about Elon Musk without relation to the report. I would really love this "news" to present a little bit of investigative journalism so I don't have to validate it myself each and every time something drops

[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 15 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Firstly, the article is as factual as it can be regarding the topic, and there are multiple additional links for the curious ones, like yourself.

No evidence offered, and the article spends half the time talking about Elon Musk without relation to the report.

I wouldn't say "no" evidence but nothing conclusive, as always with Russia because they don't grant access and deny everything.

I would really love this “news” to present a little bit of investigative journalism so I don’t have to validate it myself each and every time something drops

You mean like going into Russia?

I admit it's a bit thin, but ultimately all articles about the GRU's activities are going to be. Russia is closed for any flow of objective information.

Yet we need to talk about it and spread out and combine what we have.

And what we have paints a very likely and very damning scenario.

[–] SufferingSteve@feddit.nu 0 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Imagine if this was the norm for news, what an utopia.

Instead history and facts are whatever the AI tells us

[–] thedruid@lemmy.world -3 points 8 hours ago

When I was a kid, investigative journalists were admired and revered.

Now they are hacks with chatgpt and 0 courage