Chechen leader Kadyrov calls Musk ‘unmanly’ for unplugging his Cybertruck

Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov accused Elon Musk of remotely disabling a Tesla Cybertruck that he claims had been gifted to him by the tech billionaire.

After purportedly receiving the gift, Kadyrov modified the vehicle, planting a machine gun on top of it. He was seen posing with it in August, gleefully driving the Tesla vehicle on the roads of Grozny.

Kadyrov is counted among President Vladmir Putin’s loyalists. He has sent thousands of Chechen troops to fight against Ukraine. In a Telegram post on Thursday, he lamented that his Cybertruck has been rendered immobile, slamming Musk for zapping it remotely.

“What Elon Musk did was unbecoming of him,” Kadyrov wrote, labelling Musk’s move as “unmanly.”

According to Kadyrov, Musk had personally gifted him the truck, a claim Musk has denied.

A month ago, the Chechen leader declared that the truck will be sent to the frontlines of the Ukraine war, where Russian soldiers would benefit from its “manoeuvrability and good crew protection.”

Debunking the military hype Kadyrov gave to the vehicle, experts were quick to point out that while the Tesla Cybertruck could exude an aura of invincibility and technological prowess, it would be useless on the actual battlefield.

Now defunct, the vehicle had to be towed away. "Why, Elon? What a thing to do!" Kadyrov lamented.

“That’s not a nice thing for Elon Musk to do. He gives expensive gifts from the bottom of his heart and then remotely switches them off,” he said.

When Kadyriv first revealed that Musk gifted him the Cybertruck in August, the tech guru faced criticism for smiling upon people close to Putin and undermining American interests.

Musk brushed off the claims, stating that this was “just another example of how much the legacy media lies.”

The truck wasn’t the only Musk product Kadyrov sang praises for, though. The Chechen leader also expressed gratitude for Starlink, the satellite internet system Musk’s SpaceX developed. However, there’s one tiny snag: Starlink isn’t active in Russia.

Last month, when Kadyrov couldn’t hold back his excitement about driving the Cybertruck, he said he would receive Musk “as the most dear guest”, assuring him that the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be on the same page.

Now left with the unplugged Cybertruck, Kadyrov’s opinion of Musk seems to have drastically changed.