Ramzan Kadyrov, who last month claimed the pickup was a gift from Musk and suggested he might send it into war against Ukraine, accused the billionaire of “behaving badly” and not being “manly” after the modified Cybertruck was “remotely disabled.”
“Elon Musk behaved badly. He gives expensive gifts from the heart, and then turns them off remotely,” Kadyrov wrote in a post on Telegram.
“That’s not manly,” complained the Chechen warlord, who said he had to tow the vehicle after Tesla shut it down. “How could you do that, Elon?”
Musk strongly denied donating the Cybertruck to Kadyrov after the Russian-backed dictator posted a video of the militarized EV on Telegram in August.
Kadyrov, who has controlled Chechnya since 2007 and is a close ally of Vladimir Putin, is known for his social media gimmicks, outlandish stunts, and repressive rule.
He claimed that the Cybertruck “coped well” in combat, having previously suggested the steel-plated pickup would be sent into battle in Ukraine.
Experts have questioned whether the Tesla pickup, which weighs 6,800 lbs and needs to be recharged every 320 miles, would make a useful combat vehicle.
Mark Cancian, a senior advisor on the International Security Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, previously told Business Insider the Cybertruck would be “totally useless” on the battlefield.
“Where do you recharge this thing on the battlefield? There are no Tesla outlets on the front lines in the Donbas,” he said.
How exactly a Cybertruck ended up in Kadyrov’s hands is still something of a mystery.
Experts told BI that although directly exporting a Cybertruck from the US to Chechnya is illegal due to US sanctions, the vehicle had likely been resold to Kadyrov via a third country.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment, sent outside normal working hours.
