Elon Musk has denied ‘donating’ a Tesla Cybertruck to Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov, who posted a video driving the machine gun-mounted vehicle in Grozny, claiming to have ‘received’ the Cybertruck from Musk.
Kadyrov posted the video on 17 August, with a caption praising the Cybertruck’s designs.
‘Based on such excellent characteristics, the Cybertruck will soon be sent to [Ukraine], where it will be in demand under appropriate conditions. I am sure that this “beast” will be of great use to our soldiers,’ Kadyrov wrote.
Kadyrov also thanked Musk, telling him to come to Grozny where he would be received as ‘the most dear guest’. He added that it was unlikely the Russian Foreign Ministry would be against such a trip.
Kadyrov concluded his post by stating he was awaiting ‘new developments’ from Musk which would contribute to ending the war in Ukraine.
Tesla does not currently sell its vehicles in Russia, and Kadyrov did not expand on how he came to be in possession of the Cybertruck.
Musk on Monday denied ‘donating’ the vehicle to Kadyrov in his response to an X post by New York Times journalist Seth Abramson, who questioned why Musk was ‘providing vehicles ready for military use to sanctioned enemies of America’.
On the same day, Kadyrov shared a screenshot of Musk’s reply to Abramson, urging him not to ‘pay attention to backward and uninitiated people and corrupt media’.
‘Don’t get distracted by them, trust me. Better continue to create and reach new heights. Your developments are a great help to us. You’re great in any case!’, he wrote on Telegram. ‘P.S. by the way, special thanks for Starlink. The connection speed in the [warzone] is absolutely fire! Special respect from the fighters!’
Harold Chambers, a North Caucasus analyst and PhD student at Indiana University, believes that Kadyrov’s original post was just another form of ‘trolling’, and that Kadyrov plays on the fact that in the West his words can be ‘taken seriously without any reason.’
‘His over-the-top message, issued the day after Musk spoke at West Point, is as obvious a troll as he does, yet people freaked out simply because it involved Kadyrov, Musk, and the world’s most useless “truck” ’, Chambers said. The United States Military Academy at West Point is the oldest institution in the US which trains cadets for commission into the US army.
According to Chambers, Kadyrov is simply using this kind of topic to stay in the global spotlight, which at the same time ‘confuses Western figures.’ He argues that Kadyrov’s post reinforces ‘sensationalised images’ of the head of Chechnya as someone who never does anything of substance.
‘He all but openly posts how he circumvents sanctions to his Telegram channel, indicating otherwise hidden family businesses and regained schemes, yet there is no global outcry over it. They only pay attention when they think he does something ridiculous, and thus he can say he outfoxed them, despite the fact they simply do not care about him most of the time,’ Chambers said.
According to Chambers, Kadyrov’s claims that the Cybertruck was a gift from Musk is unlikely to be true, given ‘Musk’s actions with Starlink and known geopolitical sentiment’. Instead, Chambers notes that Kadyrov could have easily purchased the vehicle in Dubai, where he has well established ties and where a new Cybertruck costs around $250,000.
This is not the first interaction between Kadyrov and Musk. In March 2022, the pair became engaged in an online row after Musk challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to ‘single combat’ over the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The spat ended with Kadyrov appreciating Musk’s ‘unshakable will’ in refusing to block Russian sites on the Starlink satellite internet network.
OC Media reached out to Tesla for comment, but has yet to receive a response.
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