Elon Musk denies gifting machinegun-mounted Cybertruck to Russian warlord
Elon Musk has angrily denied giving a $100,000 Cybertruck to Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, who posted a video of himself with the Tesla-made vehicle claiming it was a gift from the tech billionaire.
âAre you seriously so retarded that you think I donated a Cybertruck to a Russian general? Thatâs amazing,â said Mr Musk on X, the social media platform he owns, in response to a question from a user.
Mr Kadyrov is the leader of the Chechen Republic, a semi-autonomous region of Russia, who has been sanctioned by the UK, US, and EU for alleged war crimes and corruption.
On Saturday, he posted a video of himself on Telegram driving a Cybertruck with a rear mounted machine gun in the Chechen capital, Grozny, claiming to have received it from the Tesla chief.
âWe received a Tesla cybertruck from the esteemed Elon Musk. I had the pleasure of testing the new technology and saw for myself that it is not by chance that it is called âCyberbeastâ. A real invulnerable and fast animal,â said the Chechen leader.
The âCyberbeastâ is the top-of-the-line version of Teslaâs Cybertruck, which entered production last year and has received mixed reviews, with thousands of the vehicles recalled in April due to faulty accelerators.
Mr Kadyrov said that based on the carâs âexcellent characteristicsâ it would be sent to Russian soldiers in Ukraine, and invited Mr Musk to visit Chechnya.
âElon, thank you! Come to Grozny, Iâll receive you as my dearest guest! I donât think our Russian Foreign Ministry would object to such a trip,â he said, adding cryptically: âWe are waiting for your new developments that will contribute to the completion of the SMO,â referring to the âSpecial Military Operationâ that it the Kremlinâs preferred term for the war in Ukraine.
The clip caused a stir on social media, with users on Mr Muskâs platform noting that supplying the vehicle to a man under US Federal sanctions would be a criminal offence.
The South African billionaire denied the allegation from Mr Kadyrov, who is known for eye-catching stunts and posts on social media, where he has more than two millions followers on Telegram, as well as 400,000 on a dormant X account.
Mr Musk has played a controversial role in the war in Ukraine. He has supplied Starlink communication consoles to Ukrainian forces since the early months of the war, but Ukrainian officials say he turned them off to prevent an attack on Russian ships in occupied Crimea, which the billionaire later confirmed, citing escalation concerns.
Ukraineâs presidential adviser, Mikhail Podolyak, said civilians died as a result of the thwarted attack, pointedly remarking that this was the âprice of a cocktail of ignorance and big ego,â appearing to refer to Mr Musk.
The US Congress is investigating claims that Russian forces are also using Starlink terminals. Mr Musk has denied supplying the technology to Russia.