U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss announced she would be resigning from the role on Thursday afternoon. She has since faced significant mockery as the Conservative party leader had only been in the position for 44 days.
Medvedev, who is the deputy chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation tweeted: “Bye, bye Lizz Truss, congrats to lettuce.”
This was in reference to a campaign launched by British tabloid The Daily Star, which held a livestream to see which would last longer, a lettuce head or Truss in her role as OM.
Following Truss’ announcement, the newspaper celebrated by remarking that Truss’ tenure as prime minister had come to an end with a final loss to a “60p Tesco-bought lettuce.”
Following Medvedev’s tweet, Musk remarked: “Pretty good troll tbh.” He added: “Btw, how’s it going in Bakhmut.”
Some social media users have defended Musk for his comment and insisted he is mocking the Russian, while others have suggested the CEO is cozying up to Medvedev.
According to a BBC report, Bakhmut remains one of the few places where Russia continues to advance in Ukraine. In addition to this the city is constantly bombarded by Russian shelling.
Some social media users took Musk’s comments as a slight against Russia, however.
“It does not matter how things are going in Bakhmut now. Perhaps this will be a revelation for you, Elon, but Russia has defeated 11 empires in its history. The United West will be the 12th,” Twitter user Zakirovdamir_ru wrote.
Some other social media users had polar opposite responses to Musk’s comments and suggested he was in support of Russia.
“Have you ever met a Putin employee you didn’t like? Not even trying to hide that treason anymore eh Elon?”
This confusion from Twitter users has also been exacerbated by Musk’s recent comments on the conflict on Twitter.
Earlier this week, Musk called for an end for the Ukrainian-Russian conflict in order to prevent World War 3.
Musk suggested that a nuclear war could begin if Russia loses Crimea, which holds military significance for Russia and was annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
At the beginning of the month, Musk also held a Twitter poll where he suggested a plan to end the conflict.
Musk tweeted a four-point plan for Russian-Ukrainian peace that includes a redo of elections in the annexed regions under the supervision of the United Nations, with Russia leaving the territories if that is the “will of the people”; making Crimea formally part of Russia; assuring water supply to Crimea; and Ukraine remaining neutral.
The poll, which had over 2.7 million participants resulted in 59.1 percent of people voting no while 40.9 percent of participants voted yes. Musk insisted that his poll was inundated by “bots” that swayed the results.
Medvedev responded to the poll and praised Musk for his suggestions.
“Well done, Musk, it must be said. He’s worthy of a promotion to the next officer’s rank. In his next post, he might say something like ‘Ukraine is an artificial state.” he said in a Telegram post.
Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.
