Actor and director Ben Stiller is shutting down a false claim on social media amplified by Elon Musk claiming that Stiller and other actors were paid millions by USAID to make trips to Ukraine.

A video alleging that celebrities including Stiller, Sean Penn, and Angelina Jolie received funding from an agency that Musk wants to put “into the wood chipper” is nothing but “lies coming from Russian media,

Ben Stiller has declared that social media posts making the rounds online, which allege that he used American tax dollars to fund his 2022 trip to Ukraine, are "totally false" and "untrue." The There's Something About Mary actor and the producer of Apple TV+ series Severance reposted social media messages that decried the use of public funds to send celebrities like himself to Ukraine to,