Not content with goading British rioters or trying to bait South American dictators into cage fights, a controversial tweet has yet again landed the world’s richest man in hot water.
On Sunday, bloodthirsty Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov took to X, formerly Twitter, to personally thank Elon Musk after obtaining a Cybertruck he’d since kitted out with a machine gun turret, adding “I am sure this ‘beast’ will be of great use to our soldiers” fighting alongside Russian forces in Ukraine.
After being directly confronted on the platform by activist and lawyer Seth Abramson over whether he had in fact supplied one of Putin’s closest allies with a Tesla vehicle, Musk tweeted: “Are you seriously so r-----ed that you think I donated a Cybertruck to a Russian general? That’s amazing.”
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The anti-disability slur immediately sparked backlash in the comments section. One user posted “words like the r word are awful and insulting and should never be used in this day and age,” with another person adding “Do you actually use that word like that? What an a--hole.”
As someone who’s previously been candid about his experiences of growing up with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, Musk’s cruel choice of insult was all the more curious for it actually having been used against him at school.
Back in 2022, the Tesla CEO’s estranged father, Errol Musk, spoke in a YouTube interview about being called in for a meeting with one of Musk’s teachers when the future PayPal founder was only in the second grade. “We think Elon’s r-----ed,” he remembered being told. “We think he needs a special school.”
Musk’s use of X has become increasingly erratic and conspiratorial since he purchased the platform in October 2022. Having pushed well-worn disinformation narratives to his immense following on topics ranging from the war in Ukraine to gender rows at the Paris Olympics, the European Union finally leveled formal charges against X last month for potential violations of the bloc’s social media laws.
His seemingly abrupt transformation from one-time humanitarian to a darling among far-right conspiracy theorists has also raised widespread concerns over his mental health. Not least given he’s admitted to using ketamine in treating his depression, though he claimed earlier in March to be “almost always sober” during tweet sessions.
