Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov accused billionaire Elon Musk of disabling his Tesla Cybertruck he received as a gift from him last month.

Kadyrov, who has ruled Russia's 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 U.S. 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 47-year-old Chechen leader says he has deployed thousands of troops to help the Kremlin with its Ukraine offensive.