Throwing down the gauntlet

The world’s richest man has challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to a single combat fight, with the stakes being Ukraine. Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted the challenge during the early hours of Monday morning:

Musk used Putin’s name in Russian and Ukraine’s name in Ukrainian. In a follow-up tweet, the 50-year old billionaire tagged the official Kremlin Twitter account and wrote “Do you agree to this fight.”

He didn’t elaborate much further on how such a fight would take place. Musk has a track record of making bizarre comments and statements on Twitter in the past.

The potential winner

The single combat challenge came during a flurry of strange and cryptic tweets from Musk over the course of a few hours. It’s unclear the extent of Musk’s combat or martial arts experience. He did say in an interview with Joe Rogan that he had trained in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, judo, taekwondo, and Kyokushin karate when he was young.

had held an honorary judo blackbelt, before it was revoked

Putin, on the other hand, had held an honorary judo blackbelt, before it was revoked following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The 69-year-old leader has also co-authored a book called “Judo: History, Theory, Practice,” He had been the International Judo Federation’s honorary president and ambassador since 2008 until the titles were also revoked in recent weeks.

When one Twitter user claimed that Putin would beat Musk in any type of fight, Musk replied: “If Putin could so easily humiliate the west, then he would easily accept the challenge. But he will not.”

Supporting Ukraine

Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, Musk has been very outspoken on the conflict. He has also provided internet support to Ukraine through the Starlink satellite service.

Ukrainian officials had asked Musk for his help in this regard due to concerns about the nation’s ability to maintain internet connections in the face of the conflict. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Musk on Twitter for his help, inviting the South Africa-born billionaire to Ukraine once the war ends.

Internet connections across the country have struggled to stay online due to extensive bomb strikes. Musk’s Starlink service is a space-based system that aims to introduce internet access to regions that otherwise would struggle to have the needed infrastructure.