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

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There are such a lot of avenues we may go down with this, and I don’t know as I begin writing this text the place I’m going to go (which isn’t regular for me). It’s a bizarre story, and one with many aspect components.

To begin with, the info:

• Chechnya President and Russian Normal Ramzan Kadyrov has gotten a Tesla Cybertruck.
• He has had a machine gun put in on it and mentioned 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 within the video and invitations him to go to Russia, and the primary line of the video is “Elon will be pleased.”

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

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

— Alex Bond (@AlexBondODUA) August 17, 2024

Some individuals have assumed that as a result of Kadyrov says “Thank you, Elon,” the Cybertruck was a present from Musk. Musk’s response on Twitter was to indicate somebody was “retarded.” On condition that Musk wouldn’t present members of the family with Teslas years in the past, or perhaps a low cost, I wouldn’t anticipate that Tesla gave a Cybertruck to Kadyrov. Most definitely, he purchased it, had it delivered elsewhere, had it shipped to his residence in Chechnya, and was merely thanking Musk loosely for creating the automobile and delivering it.

As a aspect observe, Russia has been actively recruiting and partnering with Republicans for a number of years now. It’s been taking place on the presidential degree, in Congress to some extent, and in sure huge corners of the right-wing media. In a single significantly bizarre case, 7 Republican Congressmen flew to Moscow on the 4th of July for a personal assembly. Persevering with on from these rising connections, a number of right-wingers have opposed the US supporting Ukraine following Russia’s invasion of the neighboring nation and have repeatedly echoed Russian speaking factors used each inside Russia and externally. Whereas there isn’t a clear direct hyperlink on this story, on the one hand, it isn’t all that stunning that this fairly notorious 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 urged that Musk may remotely disable the Cybertruck, and a few followers even assume he’ll. I feel that’s extremely unlikely, however I’m not going to delve into why. …

Concerning Kadyrov’s proposal that Elon Musk go to Russia, he adopted that up with one thing extra imprecise 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 mentioned Tesla could also be coming to Russia and will even open a manufacturing unit there. This was earlier than the larger-scale invasion of Ukraine and struggle with Ukraine, however it did come after Russia took Crimea from Ukraine. Musk mentioned in a video name with Russian college students, in response to at least one query: “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 appear to be coming anytime quickly, however who is aware of what Musk is pondering nowadays?