No, USAID didn’t spend millions to make Zelenskyy Time’s Person of the Year, it’s more fake news

No, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) didn’t spend millions to make Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy Time’s “Person of the Year” in 2022, it’s yet more misinformation.

A video shared on social media on 26 February, which since appears to have been deleted but is still available as an archived version, alleged that USAID, under president Joe Biden, paid $4 million of taxpayer money to name Zelenskyy Time’s Person of the Year. 

The video was retweeted 25,000 times and was viewed by nearly three million people before being removed.

It was uploaded by a user called Johnny Midnight, who captioned it: “USAID paid Time magazine 4 million dollars to name Zelensky ‘Person of the Year’ Is there any media that wasn’t on USAID payroll? It’s not just dollars, it’s US taxpayers’ dollars. If it weren’t for Trump and DOGE, most people would still have no idea how much money the government wastes. Politico, CBS, TIME, BBC. They all got paid for pushing the narrative down our throats.”

The same video has also been shared by other social media users with similar captions, claiming that the money paid was used to “brainwash” citizens and “bribe the media”, while others said the false video was a reason not to trust Western media, as reported by Euronews. 

The bogus video, which uses the New York Post’s logo despite the fact it wasn’t created by that publication, also asserted that US president Donald Trump’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, has discovered “huge amounts of money wasted by the government”. 

“It’s not real,” Iva Benson, a spokesperson for the New York Post, told AFP (Agence France-Presse).

A spokesperson for Time also told AFP the allegations the video makes are false.

“TIME was not paid by USAID or any other entity to select Zelensky as Person of the Year, which is chosen solely by TIME’s editors,” the spokesperson said. Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation also said in a February 27 post on X that the video is “fake.”

The viral fake news preceded a shocking and unprecedented clash in the White House on Friday (28 February), which saw President Trump and Vice President JD Vance berate the Ukrainian leader as TV cameras rolled, insisting that he had been “ungrateful,” “disrespectful” and was “gambling with millions of lives.”

Trump’s crackdown on USAID has impacted LGBTQ+ organisations globally

This latest false rhetoric about USAID follows an unprecedented attack on the international development agency, which up until recently was the largest provider of food aid in the world – as well as carrying out vital extremism prevention projects and disaster relief operations globally.

Trump signed an executive order in January pausing all foreign aid for 90 days, pending a review. He has said that any future overseas spending must align with his “America First” approach. Experts have warned that the sudden freeze in aid will lead to widespread humanitarian disaster and global instability.

Following the release of the executive order, Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency is leading Trump’s drive to shrink the federal government, announced work was underway to shut down USAID.

Trump also attacked the aid agency’s leadership online, saying they were a “bunch of radical lunatics.” Elon Musk has described the agency as “evil” and a “viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.”

Musk also tweeted a baseless claim that USAID “funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt added to the backlash against USAID by falsely claiming that the agency had spent $47,000 funding a trans opera in Colombia.

On Monday (3 March), India’s first clinics for trans people were forced to close in three cities as a result of Trump’s aid freeze.

UK LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall are also undergoing an organisation-wide consultation that will see staff cut following the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreign aid.

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