Russian General Gets A Tesla Cybertruck & Puts Machine Gun On It

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There are so many avenues we could go down with this, and I don’t know as I start writing this article where I’m going to go (which is not normal for me). It’s a weird story, and one with many side elements.

First of all, the facts:

Chechnya President and Russian General Ramzan Kadyrov has gotten a Tesla Cybertruck.
He has had a machine gun installed on it and said in a video he posted to Telegram on Friday that he’d be sending it into the battlefield.
He thanks Elon Musk for the Cybertruck in the video and invites him to visit Russia, and the first line of the video is “Elon will be pleased.”

You can watch the video, with English subtitles, here:

Cyber truck for the terrorist 👌👏 pic.twitter.com/pTsRvZDoYg

— Alex Bond (@AlexBondODUA) August 17, 2024

Some people have assumed that because Kadyrov says “Thank you, Elon,” the Cybertruck was a gift from Musk. Musk’s response on Twitter was to imply someone was “retarded.” Given that Musk wouldn’t gift family members with Teslas years ago, or even a discount, I wouldn’t expect that Tesla gave a Cybertruck to Kadyrov. Most likely, he bought it, had it delivered elsewhere, had it shipped to his home in Chechnya, and was simply thanking Musk loosely for creating the vehicle and delivering it.

As a side note, Russia has been actively recruiting and partnering with Republicans for several years now. It’s been happening at the presidential level, in Congress to some extent, and in certain big corners of the right-wing media. In one particularly weird case, 7 Republican Congressmen flew to Moscow on the 4th of July for a private meeting. Continuing on from those growing connections, several right-wingers have opposed the US supporting Ukraine following Russia’s invasion of the neighboring country and have repeatedly echoed Russian talking points used both within Russia and externally. While there is no clear direct link in this story, on the one hand, it is not all that surprising that this quite infamous Russian warlord is seemingly an Elon Musk fan and thrilled about his new Cybertruck.

Kadyrov is on the US Treasury Department’s sanctions list for “human rights abuse in Russia.” Some have suggested that Musk could remotely disable the Cybertruck, and some fans even think he will. I think that’s highly unlikely, but I’m not going to delve into why. …

Regarding Kadyrov’s proposal that Elon Musk visit Russia, he followed that up with something more vague and intriguing. “I don’t think the Russian Foreign Ministry would mind such a trip,” he reportedly said. “And, of course, we’re waiting for your new developments that will help us finish our special military operation (in Ukraine).”

In 2021, Musk said Tesla may be coming to Russia and could even open a factory there. This was before the larger-scale invasion of Ukraine and war with Ukraine, but it did come after Russia took Crimea from Ukraine. Musk said in a video call with Russian students, in response to one question: “I think we’re close to establishing Tesla presence in Russia and that would be great. And more broadly, also in Kazakhstan and neighboring regions. It’s important for us to support Tesla supporters like yourself,” he said. “Over time we’ll look to have factories in other parts of the world, potentially Russia at some point.” That doesn’t seem to be coming anytime soon, but who knows what Musk is thinking these days?