Russian Official Calls Him A ‘Little Devil’
Tesla’s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, took to Twitter on Monday morning to challenge Russian President Vladimir Putin to “single combat” over Ukraine, insisting he was “absolutely serious” about the offer, while Russia’s space program director replied with a quote from Pushkin calling Musk a “little devil.”
“I hereby challenge Vladimir Putin to single combat” and the “stakes are Ukraine,” Musk said in a Twitter post Monday morning, using the Russian alphabet to write Putin’s name while writing Ukraine in the country’s own language.
In a follow-up message in Russian, Musk tagged the Kremlin’s official Twitter account and asked, “Do you agree to this fight?”
Dmitry Rogozin, director general of Russia’s space program Roscosmos, replied to Musk with a verse from Alexander Pushkin’s “The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda.”
“You, little devil, are still young,” Rogozin said, quoting Pushkin’s folk story and adding, “You are weak to compete with me, it would only be a waste of time. Overtake my brother first.”
Musk, for his part, reiterated that he is “absolutely serious” about the offer, and when asked if he would be surprised if Putin accepted the challenge, Musk insisted it “would be an honor.”
“If Putin could so easily humiliate the west, then he would accept the challenge,” Musk wrote in another response on Twitter. “But he will not.” MSN