Elon Musk challenges Vladimir Putin to a duel, with Ukraine at stake

Billionaire Elon Musk challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday to a man-to-man fight over Ukraine, the scene of a Russian army offensive for nearly three weeks.

I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to a man-to-man fight. The stakes are Ukraine, wrote on Twitter the founder of the space company SpaceX, without specifying the form that this duel would take.

Do you accept this fight? he asked in another message in Russian, addressing the official Kremlin Twitter account.

And faced with the incomprehension of an Internet user, Elon Musk assured that he was completely serious.

The billionaire is used to controversy on Twitter, where he has more than 77 million followers.

In February, he accused the U.S. stock market regulator, which had imposed several sanctions on him, of trying to muzzle his freedom of expression, and he compared Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to Adolf Hitler in a message supporting opponents of government health restrictions. He later deleted the post.