Podcast host Joe Rogan repeated debunked misinformation about Ukraine on his Spotify show this week as a conversation about wildfire relief veered into United States aid for Ukraine’s defense against Russia.
Rogan doubled down on a story debunked 18 months ago that the U.S. had “accidentally” sent more than $6 billion to Kyiv as he lamented the destruction caused by the ongoing California wildfires and the 2023 wildfires in Maui.
Entire neighborhoods, including 80 percent of Lahaina, were decimated in the August 2023 Maui blaze, killing 102 people. The fires in Southern California have displaced thousands of residents, claimed at least 25 lives, and destroyed over 5,300 structures across Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
Rogan and comedians Shane Gillis, Mark Normand, and Ari Shaffir discussed wildfire response throughout the episode of The Joe Rogan Experience. An hour in, as Rogan compared the amount of federal spending in Ukraine to California rebuild costs, he said the U.S. government “accidentally” sent $6 billion to Ukraine.
“Here’s the thing, even if you are supporting the idea of sending money to Ukraine, I’m not arguing against that,” Rogan said.
“I’m saying they accidentally sent $6 billion there, and no one cared, and they didn’t send $5 billion in Maui, and they could have.”
Newsweek reached out to a media representative for Rogan via email for comment.
A post with a clip of this discussion shared on X, formerly Twitter, has been viewed more than 20 million times since Tuesday evening and was shared by Elon Musk.
In a roughly paraphrased quote from the clip, the post quoted Rogan: “All it would have taken is $5B to rebuild Maui and they ‘accidentally’ paid an extra $6B to Ukraine. We keep sending money to these other countries. Even if you’re supporting Ukraine, I’m still saying they ‘accidentally’ sent $6B there and no one cared, and they didn’t send $5B to Maui and they could have.”
In a response sent on X on Tuesday evening, viewed 18.5 million times, Elon Musk said: “This is so messed up.”
However, the claim was debunked by Newsweek in 2023. The U.S. has not sent Ukraine $6 billion by accident.
In June 2023, the Pentagon said it had overestimated the value of weapons sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two fiscal years authorized through the Presidential Drawdown Authority, according to U.S. Department of Defense press secretary Sabrina Singh.
Singh told reporters that in “a significant number of cases, services used replacement costs rather than net book value, thereby overestimating the value of the equipment drawn down from U.S. stocks and provided to Ukraine.
“Once we discovered this misvaluation, the comptroller reissued guidance on March 31 clarifying how to value equipment in line with the financial management regulation and DOD policy to ensure we use the most accurate of accounting methods.
“We have confirmed that for F.Y. [Fiscal Year] ’23, the final calculation is $3.6 billion, and for F.Y. ’22, it is $2.6 billion, for a combined total of $6.2 billion,” Singh said.
It meant that the $6 billion in funding could be accessed through the Presidential Drawdown Authority, whereby the president could authorize the immediate transfer of defense articles and services from U.S. stocks up to a funding cap established by law.
A U.S. Department of State statement published on January 9, 2025, says that since August 2021, the secretary of State has exercised this authority, delegated by the President, to draw down 55 defense “articles and services” from DOD stockpiles, totaling $31.7 billion.
Rogan has repeated this false claim on his podcast about an “accidental” $6 billion being sent to Ukraine, including to comedian Theo Von in November 2024, with Trump National Intelligence director nominee Tulsi Gabbard in September 2023, and, as Newsweek covered in 2023, actor Duncan Trussell in July that year.
Rogan also failed to mention the billions of dollars of federal funding Maui has received since its wildfires in August 2023. A FEMA statement from August 2024 says that FEMA and federal partner funding had, by that point, provided approximately $3 billion.
A report published by news outlet Maui Now on Monday said that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had recently allocated more than $1.6 billion to Maui County for wildfire recovery as part of a $12 billion allocation to communities across the U.S. devastated by disaster. A December 2024 report in Honolulu Civil Beat said this allocation, before it was approved, would be in addition to $4 billion in federal support Maui had received since the wildfires in August 2023.
In December 2020, Rogan signed a licensing deal with Spotify for the platform’s exclusive rights to broadcast his podcast. The deal was widely reported at the time to be worth $100 million. However, The New York Times reported in February 2022 that the number for the three-and-a-half-year deal was “at least” $200 million.
Spotify and Rogan signed a new $250 million deal in February 2024, when it was announced that the show would no longer be exclusive to its service; it is now available to other platforms.
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