Lex has been vocal for a long time now about his desire to interview Zelenskyy and Putin. Today, after the official news that Tucker Carlson has interviewed Putin, Lex tweeted:
There's already a similarly formatted Lex/Putin market:
Resolves yes only if the interview is published in 2024 (interviews confirmed or rumoured to take place but not yet released before 2024 ends will not count).
tagging @LexFridman because I wish he would come back to Manifold 🧡
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@shankypanky Resolves NO - Although The interview was likely recorded in 2024, it was released/published in 2025. https://x.com/lexfridman/status/1875982164321239202
@dgga "I want to understand both Zelensky and Putin's perspectives" is such a weird take, Lex. 3 years of brutal war and 8 years of a proxy war against Ukraine and I'm going to go out on a limb and say you know Putin's perspective bro. I used to be able to play devil's advocate for his starry-eyed fence sitting but after the last few months I just find it irritating.
I'll keep giving him the benefit of the doubt on a Putin interview but I can't see it as being anything more than an opportunity to act as another mouthpiece and provide fodder for the bad/biased takes going around via confident non-experts on Twitter.
Wow, Zelensky agreed yesterday on twitter/x. I still bet "no" a) as a hedge and b) it may well not happen before January. I want it to happen, will be glad to lose. Why? To quote a reddit comment:
"I want everyone to see from his interviews that he's a great leader and Ukraine is fighting the good fight for the entire democratic world. He needs to make sure people stick around and listen to him all 3 hours.
It reminds me of myself when I was newly immigrated and assumed that people in the U.S. understood the basics of our region and the issues Russia creates. Well, surprise, surprise—they really don't. Most folks don't know anything about Holodomor, Soviet crimes, Russian colonialism, or the Budapest agreement. You need to spell things out for these folks, President Zelenskyy. Please find someone good at intercultural communication so that you know how to appeal to Westerners, who often don't even know geography, let alone any historical context, current war crimes or future risks Russia might pose.
They need to hear that Russia has been doing what terrorist organizations do for 2.5 years every day in Ukraine! All the rape, all the civilian targets, all the children's hospitals, all the torture and kidnapping of tens of thousands of children! They need these things highlighted. People are very uninformed here!"
I don't see how being interviewed by some Youtuber would help Zelenskyy to get Putin to stop invading his country.
@TiredCliche I'm not even sure how to respond to this. the question isn't "will Lex interview Zelensky and stop the war?" this is just a comparable market for the Putin ones and for some time now Lex has said he wants to interview both. he was in Israel and Palestine last year and had a few episodes from his time there, and the year before he was in Russia/Ukraine but didn't have content from then.
@shankypanky In the tweet you posted Fridman seems to imply that interviewing Zelenskyy would help stop the war. I consider that fantastically stupid.
@TiredCliche yeah I don't read it that way. he definitely has strong opinions and naivety that talking things through would fix a lot of the trouble of the world (not something I disagree with generally speaking) but I don't think at all, maybe because I'm familiar with his tweets/content, that he's implying that if he got these two on his pod they'd be singing kumbaya in no time.
@TiredCliche anyway I'm also not trying to sway your opinion on him obviously. there is plenty of great content (and people!) in the world, no need to like it all.
@shankypanky I mean, I do disagree with that. The "let's talk things through" mindset is wildly naïve, the two leaders in question have diametrically opposed goals. Putin would genuinely benefit from annexing Ukraine, Zelenskyy would genuinely benefit from preventing Putin from doing that. There are many issues that could benefit from constructive discussion, but this isn't one of them. So there's no point to Zelenskyy going on this guy's podcast.
@TiredCliche I said generally speaking? I'm not applying it to this. I'm also reiterating that while I'm sure he wants to talk about the war and Zelensky's perspective and might even have naive hope that it would be beneficial I doubt he's calling him and saying "come on my pod and the war will end"?
@TiredCliche My interpretation of the X: "The reason I'm willing to talk to Tucker and Putin AND Zelenskyy is that I believe in the power of conversations. So please don't cancel me, I'm not a Russian puppy I mean puppet"