Elon Musk has tweeted a photo of himself wrestling sumo in his latest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The 50-year-old billionaire founder of SpaceX shared an image under a previous post in which he formally challenged the 69-year-old warring leader to “single combat” to decide the fate of Ukraine.
Russia invaded its eastern European neighbor on February 24, but the campaign stalled as Putin’s troops failed to make any significant progress, although thousands of soldiers and civilians were killed in the process.
In a bid to end the atrocities, Tesla CEO Musk tweeted last week: “I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to single combat… bet on Ukraine.”
The boss of cryptocurrency firm Binance, Changpeng Zhao, commented, “Brother, of course I want you to win, but this is the reality. [laughing emoji] … I haven’t seen your kong fu videos. [sic]
On Monday, Musk responded to the response with a photo of him fighting a sumo wrestler.
Offering an end to the atrocities in Ukraine, Elon Musk, 50, tweeted last week: “I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to single combat… Betting in Ukraine.” On Monday, he responded to a tweet with a photo of him fighting a sumo wrestler (pictured).
Billionaire SpaceX founder Elon Musk (pictured left), 50, shared an image of himself wrestling sumo under a previous post in which he formally challenged Vladimir Putin, 69, to a “martial arts” challenge to decide the fate of Ukraine (pictured: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (right) and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, attend the opening of the Tesla plant in Berlin (Brandenburg, Germany) on Tuesday)
Putin (pictured center), known for his love of judo, may have an advantage in hand-to-hand combat.
It is not known when the shot was fired, but the businessman claims to have won the fight.
He added: “I managed to quit but it cost me my c5-c6 disc failure and 8 years of mega back pain! Finally, the merging of c5-c6 disks has been fixed. [sic]
After challenging Putin for the first time last week, Musk ended his proposal with a direct reference to the Kremlin.
Do you agree to this fight? he wrote, noting the Kremlin’s official Twitter account.
But the South African-born billionaire who was known in the past for his outlandish Twitter comments may be biting off more than he can in challenging the former KGB chief.
“I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to single combat,” Musk tweeted last week, typing Putin’s name in Russian. “Betting on Ukraine,” he added, writing the country’s name in Ukrainian and tagging the Kremlin’s official account.
The President of Russia has a black belt in judo and is even a co-author of a book about this sport called Judo: History, Theory, Practice.
Putin became honorary president of the International Judo Federation in 2008, but was removed from that position due to the invasion of Ukraine.
Musk’s bizarre challenge was part of a flurry of tweets he sent over the course of three hours on March 14, including Shakespeare’s oft-quoted line from Macbeth: “By the prick of my thumbs, something evil is coming here.”
In another tweet, he posted a meme of a character from the Netflix show Narcos sitting on a porch swing that reads: “Netflix is waiting for the end of the war to make a movie about a black guy from Ukraine who falls in love with a transgender Russian soldier.” ‘ [sic]
Musk tried to be a thorn in Putin’s side after the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, even providing internet services to the war-torn country through his Starlink satellite service at the request of Ukrainian officials.
Musk, who is worth an estimated $218.9 billion, ridiculed Russian officials earlier this month after the head of their space program brushed aside U.S. sanctions against Moscow for starting a full-scale war with Ukraine.
“In such a situation, we cannot supply the United States with the best rocket engines in the world. Let them fly on something else, on their brooms, I don’t know what,” said Dmitry Rogozin, head of the Russian space agency, on state Russian television on March 3.
On the same day, Musk tweeted a link to the successful launch of SpaceX, followed by the words “American broomstick” and an American flag emoji.
The apparent challenge was part of the 50-year-old Musk’s flurry of tweets over the course of three hours.
Late last month, the tech giant responded to a plea from Ukraine’s vice prime minister, who asked the tycoon to help the struggling country with satellite internet access.
‘@elonmusk while you’re trying to colonize Mars, Russia is trying to occupy Ukraine! While your missiles are successfully landing from space, Russian missiles are attacking the civilian population of Ukraine! We ask you to provide Ukraine with Starlink stations and appeal to sane Russians to stand up,” Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Fedorov tweeted.
Russian bombing strikes have shut down the Internet in much of the country.
Local officials have a vested interest in keeping locals connected so their stories can be used to counter Russian propaganda and so they can talk about atrocities committed by Russian forces in Putin’s name.
On the same day, Musk answered the call and said that he would send Starlink receivers to the country.
“Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals on the way,” Musk tweeted hours after the extraordinary request.
Starlink is a space system that SpaceX has been building for years to bring Internet access to underserved areas of the world.
Last month, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Mikhail Fedorov tweeted to Musk for help.
Ukrainian government official asked Musk to provide warring country with Starlink stations
Less than 11 hours later, Musk answered the call and said more terminals were on the way.
Musk assured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a March 5 video call that SpaceX would send more Starlink satellite stations.
The president of the struggling nation took to Twitter to thank Musk for his support and invited the tech mogul to visit Ukraine once the war is over.
“I spoke to @elonmusk. I am grateful to him for supporting Ukraine in word and deed. Next week we will receive another batch of Starlink systems for destroyed cities, ”Zelensky wrote on the social network.
Musk, who said he was “looking forward to visiting Ukraine” when the war is over, sent a set of antennas to Ukraine earlier this month after Prime Minister Denys Shmygal expressed concern that Ukrainians could lose internet access if Russia will continue to attack the communication towers as it did with the explosion of the Kiev TV tower.