Elon Musk challenges Putin to confront him in a "man to man" fight... and receives a response from a Russian official

American entrepreneur Elon Musk said he is challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin to confront him in a man-to-man fight, as an expression of his solidarity with Ukraine in the face of Russia's military intervention, which is entering its 20th day.

"I'm here to challenge Vladimir Putin. A man-to-man fight," Musk said in a tweet on Twitter on Monday afternoon, before adding: "The stakes are Ukraine."

Musk wrote Vladimir Putin's name in Russian, and Ukraine's name was written in Ukrainian.

In a subsequent tweet, Elon directed the account of the Russian presidency (the Kremlin) on "Twitter", saying: "Do you agree to the fight?"

He said he was "very serious" about what he said.

The Russian response came immediately from the head of the Russian Space Agency, Dmitry Rogozin, who used a literary quote to disparage Elon Musk's tweet.

It read, "You, little devil. You're too young to face me. That would be a waste of time. Get past my brother first."

Elon Musk is one of the world's richest people with a fortune of more than $220 billion, which he collected from his startups that he founded or co-founded in the fields of technology, transportation and the conquest of space.

Similar to SpaceX, Tesla Motors, and PayPal before that.

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