Tesla Inc TSL Managing Director Elon Musk denied on Sunday that he had “donated” a Cybertruck to the Russian president Ramzan Kadyrov but made no statement, as the ally of the Russian president Vladimir Putin Gained access to the vehicle if its production is limited to the USA

What happened: “Are you really so fooled that you think I donated a Cybertruck to a Russian general? That’s unbelievable,” Musk wrote to the author Seth Abramson after he claimed that Musk was proProviding military-ready vehicles to America’s sanctioned enemies.

These allegations come after Ramzan Kadyrov, head of state of the Chechen Republic and colonel general of the Russian military, released a video showing himself driving the Cybertruck.

Kadyrov shared a video on the messaging app Telegram on Saturday of himself driving a Cybertruck with a machine gun mounted on the roof. The president also invited Musk to Chechnya.

“Due to these excellent characteristics, the Cybertruck will soon be sent to the SVO zone (Russia-Ukraine war zone), where it will be in demand under appropriate conditions. I am sure that this ‘beast’ will bring many advantages to our soldiers,” Kadyrov said on Telegram in Russian, hinting at the use of Tesla vehicles in the country’s war against Ukraine.

He also praised Musk as a “great genius” and a “great man” and welcomed him to Grozny, the capital of Chechnya.

“Elon, thank you! Come to Grozny, I will receive you as my dearest guest! I do not think that our Russian Foreign Ministry would have anything against such a trip. And, of course, we are waiting for your new developments that will contribute to the completion of the special military operation,” he added.

Why it is important: The Cybertruck is the latest production vehicle from Musk’s Tesla. The vehicle is manufactured exclusively at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Texas and is currently only sold in the United States. Although the company has announced that it will begin delivering the stainless steel truck in Canada later this year, the timeline for availability in other parts of the world is unknown.

Although Musk denied “donating” the truck to Kadyrov, the CEO did not provide any details on how the boss might have gained access to the truck seen in the video shared on Telegram.

Although it is a production vehicle, Tesla markets the truck as being robust and stable enough to go anywhere, and is equipped with shatter-proof glass windows that can withstand the impact of a baseball at 110 km/h.

During the vehicle’s delivery in November, Tesla even showed a video of the vehicle being bullet-proofed, being shot at with a .45 caliber Tommy Gun, a 9mm Glock and a 9mm MP5-SD. You can see the bullets denting the steel, but none of them penetrate the cabin.

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