Elon Musk, the South African-born entrepreneur with ambitious plans to colonise Mars, has become embroiled in an ‘absurd’ dispute over his company’s use of a flatulating unicorn image he is accused of “ripping off”.

The 47-year-old multi-billionaire first shared the unicorn image, created by Colorado artist Tom Edwards, with his 22 million Twitter followers in February last year.

Edwards, who runs his own art pottery business, produced the unicorn mug design in 2010, explaining: “I figure anything with rainbows and unicorns has to be a hit!”

It quickly became one of his best-selling items and years later the colourful piece of pottery would grab the attention of Musk, who tweeted an image declaring: “Maybe my favourite mug ever.”

Musk used a copy of the image in March 2017 to promote a hidden “sketch pad” feature in Tesla vehicles and then again in a Christmas card to owners of the electric cars later that year.