Billionaire Elon Musk is threatening to throw some punches once again—this time aimed at Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
Musk has a history of proposing fights and backing away from them, though, infamously backing away from a feud with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Maduro, who has served as the country’s president since 2013, claimed victory in the latest election—though the opposition and independent analyses cast serious doubt over the legitimacy of his supposed win.
Musk echoed those concerns about the integrity of Venezuela’s election on Monday, dubbing it “major election fraud by Maduro” and calling him a dictator.
It seems that Musk’s ongoing criticism of Maduro has gotten under the politician’s skin, who on Monday, during a national television interview challenged Musk to fight, according to Anadolu News Agency.
Maduro blasted Musk as his “archenemy,” adding: “I’m not afraid of you Elon Musk. Let’s fight, wherever you want.”
Musk responded in kind, saying “I accept.”
“Does he have space lasers? Because I do,” he added in another comment.
Musk doubled down on his decision in subsequent posts.
“I’m coming for you Maduro! I will carry you to Gitmo on a donkey,” he threatened in one post.
The Tesla CEO also promised that the hypothetical matchup would be different from the long-proposed battle against Zuckerberg, which never came to fruition.
Musk cited surgery he needed, repeatedly stalling on scheduling it. But in his comments, still took a shot at Zuckerberg (despite, again, Musk being the one who refused to fight him).
“Maduro is a big guy himself and probably knows how to fight, so this would be a real fight,” Musk wrote. “Zuck is a little fella, so that would be a short fight lol.”
He joked that the fight could be turned into a three-person matchup between them.
“All three of us enter the ring, only one comes out,” he quipped.
Musk also proposed that if he were to beat Maduro, then “he resigns as dictator of Venezuela.” But if he were to lose, then he promised “a free ride to Mars.”
Musk currently has no ability to send people to Mars.
But despite the game he has talked, even Musk seems doubtful that such a fight would ever actually happen.
“He will chicken out,” Musk predicted, ironic given his own comments.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that the United States has “serious concerns that the result announced does not reflect the will or the votes of the Venezuelan people.”
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