'Which Elon Musk Do You Like?': Zelensky Responds to Tesla CEO's Poll

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has fired back at Tesla CEO Elon Musk and his "peace" plan for the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Musk made several controversial suggestions to end the war in a Twitter poll on Monday. He proposed that Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, should remain under Russian control with an "assured" water supply and insisted that peace would depend on Ukraine remaining "neutral" about world affairs.

The tech billionaire also said that recent referendums concerning the annexation of four regions of Ukraine—which the West dismissed as "sham" elections— should be redone with United Nations supervision. He argued that Russia should leave the regions only "if that is will of the people."

Over 62 percent of respondents to Musk's Twitter poll disapproved of his plan. Andrij Melnyk, Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, tweeted "F**k off is my very diplomatic reply to you @elonmusk" in response to the poll. The official account of the Ukrainian parliament offered a simple "no" in response.

Musk continued to defend his position in subsequent tweets, arguing that the scenario he proposed was "highly likely to be the outcome in the end" and warning that nuclear war could result if Russia did not get its way. He also shared a poll asking if residents of Crimea and the Donbas region should "decide whether they're part of Russia or Ukraine."

Within hours, Zelensky responded by offering his own Twitter poll concerning Musk. The Ukrainian president asked his followers, "Which @elonmusk do you like more?" alongside the choices "One who supports Ukraine" and "One who supports Russia." Over 1.3 million people had responded to the poll as of Monday evening, with 83 percent of respondents choosing a pro-Ukraine Musk.

The dispute between Zelensky and Musk comes after significant success for the Ukrainian military's eastern and southern counteroffensives. Ukrainian forces reportedly made a large advance in the south on Monday and liberated multiple Russian-occupied villages.

Over the weekend, Ukraine retook the city of Lyman, which is in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk—one of four regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed to have annexed last Friday.

Musk's peace plan was poorly received by many on Twitter. Republican U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois responded by saying that the proposal reminded him of plans that he and his elementary school classmates concocted to solve the Cold War in the 1980s.

"This idea reminds me of fourth grade social studies where we came up with a peace plan between USSR and USA," Kinzinger tweeted. "We thought that if Gorbachev and Reagan were forced to eat one dinner of American food and 1 of Russian, they would become friends. For reals."

Newsweek has reached out to Musk, Tesla and the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.