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Elon Musk says Twitter locked his account over fear it had been hacked

The Tesla CEO tweeted about his love for Japanese anime cartoons and said "I own a chibi Wolverine."
Image: Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, speaks during the International Space Station Research and Development Conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, speaks during the International Space Station Research and Development Conference at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, DC.Brendan Smialowski / AFP - Getty Images file

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he was temporarily locked out of his Twitter account on Monday due to a concern he might have been hacked.

Musk explained his brief absence to his 23.1 million followers late Monday night — and seemed to have a sense of humor about it.

The tweet about being temporarily locked out of his account came seven hours after he posted about his love for anime, and followed it up with: “And I own a chibi Wolverine,” two statements you probably wouldn’t expect to see a billionaire businessman publicly declare out of the blue.

But then again, this is Elon Musk.

A Twitter representative did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for more information, but the company typically has a policy of not commenting on individual accounts.

Musk has a history of using his account to share everything from announcements about his many companies to personal ramblings. Over the past week, he announced a lower-priced Tesla and revealed that The Boring Company’s first tunnel would open to the public in December.

The South African entrepreneur's Twitter feed has always tended to be something of a grab bag, ranging from the serious to the bizarre — and his tweets have also landed him in trouble. In July, the billionaire called Vern Unsworth, one of the British divers helping to rescue a group of Thai boys trapped in a cave, a “pedo guy.” The remark was apparently prompted after Unsworth criticized Musk’s rescue plan as a publicity stunt that “had absolutely no chance of working.”

Musk deleted the tweet and apologized, but would not let the matter rest, commenting on how it was strange he hadn’t yet been sued. Unsworth promptly filed a defamation lawsuit in California in September via his attorney in the United Kingdom, where a libel case would require Musk to provide proof that Unsworth is a “pedo guy.”

On August 7, Musk wrote on Twitter that he was considering taking Tesla private and that he had secured funding for the arrangement. Federal regulators said Musk had "not even discussed, much less confirmed, key deal terms."

In September, Musk was charged with fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Two days later, Musk settled the charges, which included a requirement he step down as chairman of Tesla for three years and that Tesla “enhance controls with respect to Elon’s public communications regarding Tesla and to pre-approve any such written communications that contain, or reasonably could contain, information material to Tesla or its stockholders."