This video grab taken from a handout footage released on the official Telegram account of the Head of Chechen Republic on August 17, 2024, shows Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov standing atop a gun-mounted Tesla Cybertruck in Grozny, Chechnya.

Moscow (AFP) - Ramzan Kadyrov, the powerful leader of Russia’s Chechen Republic, accused Elon Musk on Thursday of disabling a Tesla Cybertruck that he claimed to have received from the billionaire last month.

Kadyrov, who has ruled Chechnya with an iron fist for over 17 years, shared a video in August of him driving around in the electric vehicle with what appeared to be a machine gun mounted on its roof.

Kadyrov said he received the vehicle from Musk, a claim that the Tesla owner called a lie on his social media platform X.

“Now, recently, Musk remotely disabled the Cybertruck,” said Kadyrov in a post on his Telegram account.

“That’s not a nice thing for Elon Musk to do. He gives expensive gifts from the bottom of his heart and then remotely switches them off,” he said.

The Cybertruck is an electric pick-up truck that was first unveiled by US carmaker Tesla in 2019 before going into production last year.

Kadyrov claimed in his social media post that the vehicle he received was used in combat and sent to Ukraine, where it “performed admirably”.

The son of a former rebel warlord, Kadyrov is now one of Putin’s most vociferous backers and has long referred to himself as the president’s “footsoldier”.

The 47-year-old Chechen leader says he has deployed thousands of troops to help the Kremlin with its Ukraine offensive.