Bombastic billionaire Elon Musk has set his sights on Russian president Vladimir Putin with a tweet offering to fight him one on one, with Ukraine the prize.
"I hereby challenge Владимир Путин (Vladimir Putin) to single combat," the Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder tweeted to his 78 million followers .
"Stakes are Україна (Ukraine)."
He then followed it up, copying in the Kremlin's official twitter account asking if Putin agreed to the fight.
Whether this was a serious offer or just Musk being Musk remains to be seen, but the controversial entrepreneur did take the time to reply to someone who suggested he would beat Putin easily.
"The fight would be over in 10 seconds. It would just depend on how much damage Elon would want to do, how fast. Nothing else. Elon is also 19 years younger," the user wrote.
Musk replied: "Pretty much."
He then referenced a fight he had with a sumo wrestler.
"Yeah, I did manage to throw the world champion sumo wrestler, but at the cost of smashing a disc in my neck that caused me insane back pain for 7 years," Musk wrote.
While Musk's online fanclub rushed to support their favourite, backing him against the former KGB officer, others weren't as supportive.
"Ukraine is not yours to gamble, Elon. Want to help? Donate a few billion to help the people of Ukraine buy weapons and food," one wrote.
"They need money. They have a hero. Volodymyr Zelenskyy."
Another pointed out people including children are being brutally killed in Ukraine and that Musk shouldn't make a joke it.
"Putin attacks only the poor. You are rich, he will treat you right!" wrote a third.
Neither Putin nor the Kremlin has replied to Musk yet, although that hasn't stopped one prolific member of the Russian government from having a dig.
Dmitry Rogozin, head of space agency Roscosmos tweeted out a passage from Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.
"You, little devil, are still young. Compete with me weak; It would only be a waste of time. Overtake my brother first," Rogozin posted.
It's not the first time Musk, currently said to be the richest person in the world, has publicly offered to physical fight with someone famous.
In 2020, he told the New York Times: "If Johnny [Depp] wants a cage fight, just let me know."
That was in relation to Depp's divorce from Musk's ex Amber Heard. Around the same time he denied having a threesome with Heard and model Cara Delavigne, while being publicly admonished by his own partner, Grimes.
She told him to stop tweeting and phone her after he took a swipe at the way transgender and non-binary people identify.
"Pronouns suck," the SpaceX and Tesla boss had tweeted.
