‘These are lies coming from Russian media’: ‘Severance’ director Ben Stiller deflates yet another Elon Musk conspiracy theory

You could fill multiple books with the lies Elon Musk espouses on any given day — and they probably will in the near future. From the big ones, such as denying what a Nazi salute is, to the bizarre ones, such as pretending he plays the video game Diablo, to the ones we simply don’t understand yet, like cheerleading any conspiracy theory that he sees on his timeline. These conspiracies are increasingly worrying because, as his influence grows, these antics and lies increasingly have more real-life victims. Severance director Ben Stiller finally put his foot down and pushed back on the latest Elon Musk conspiracy.

Even the avid heavy user of X will admit it’s worse than it’s ever been. The removal of major community guidelines and the reinstatement of the most mischievous members of society have led to many influential voices — both brands and celebrities — fully leaving the platform. The accounts remaining, however, attest that the app is now a hotbed of misinformation and lies. Even though community notes allegedly correct misinformation, if Mark Zuckerberg is now saying he’s going to remove fact-checking and follow a more X-like approach to handling facts — prioritizing opinions instead — it’s clear that community notes cannot always be relied on.

Elon Musk’s latest pet peeve is with USAID. Whereas former executives and political commentators insist that the government agency’s main goal throughout the globe has been ensuring that developing nations requiring assistance in situations such as health scares — which, if left unmitigated, could spill over to the rest of the world, including the U.S. — are handled quickly and definitively, Elon Musk and the Trump family claim it’s actually a hub for the Democratic Party’s unchecked corruption. In true Elon Musk fashion, he doesn’t need any evidence to back his claims.

Deadline reports that an account named Patriot Lady released an unverified rumor that Ben Stiller’s trip to Ukraine, where he met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was actually a ploy by USAID to garner favor for the Ukrainian leader with the American public. In the video, the user also falsely claims that E! News reported Ben Stiller was paid $4 million for the trip by USAID. The post was viewed more than 3.9 million times, and even though a community note labeled the story as “fabricated,” it may be a case of too little, too late. The video was shared by Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk himself through a repost, and some people probably still believe the rumor is true.

The post also claims that USAID paid Angelina Jolie $20 million and Orlando Bloom $8 million, among other celebrities. Even though Ben Stiller primarily uses his account these days to talk about his excellent show Severance and sports, this he couldn’t ignore. He responded to the rumors with two tweets, saying, “These are lies coming from Russian media. I completely self-funded my humanitarian trip to Ukraine. There was no funding from USAID and certainly no personal payments.”

President Donald Trump has sadly created a political era that exists post-truth. By convincing his base there’s a conspiracy against them, they now discard any pushback against his team’s claims, and whatever Trump says is considered either truth or “just a joke.” What’s even more worrying is that Elon Musk has now become Trump’s Geppetto because, on the morning of Feb. 6, 2025, Trump woke up to his social media app, ironically named Truth Social, to spew more unsubstantiated allegations against USAID, calling it the “biggest scandal in all history.” Anyone else making such claims would demand a pause, but for Trump, this is just another Thursday.