Tesla's (TSLA) chief executive is once again in the middle of Russia/Ukraine war, after a person purporting to be the leader of the Chechen Republic offered to train him to fight Russian President Vladimir Putin in single combat.
Elon Musk said last week that he would be willing to fight Putin in single combat to decide the fate of besieged Ukraine.
This news apparently caught the eye of Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic, who said in a Telegram post this week that Musk would need to undergo extensive training before he would be prepared to defeat Putin.
Kadyrov is the Moscow-installed leader of Chechnya, an area with its own history of wrestling Russia for its independence.
Despite being declared an independent republic in 1996 after an extended war, it has effectively remained part of Russian territory and under Russian control, first via Ramzan's father, Akhmad Kadyrov, and now through Kremlin-loyal Ramzan.
In his missive, Ramzan repeatedly refers to Musk as "Elona," a feminization of his name, and says he would need to undergo several levels of training before he was even close to vanquishing Putin.
Putin was a KGB agent, and then trainer, for the Soviet secret service for years before the fall of the Soviet Union.
Musk retweeted the Telegram post, which, if indeed from Ramzan Kadyrov, would be timely indeed: Earlier this week, Ramazan said he has been to Ukraine since the war has begun, sparking worries about what types of militias or outside forces may come into play if the conflict sparks a larger regional war.
For his part, Musk was unusually restrained, saying that to train with the special forces would not be fair to Putin.
"Thank you for the offer, but such excellent training would give me too much of an advantage. If he is afraid to fight, I will agree to use only my left hand and I am not even left-handed. Elona"
